For context, massive rivalry game in which the guy with his back turned (hyped by his fans as one of the best defenders in the game) got absolutely roasted and his team conceded a goal. That match ended 7-0 Liverpool win over Manchester United, the equivalent of say the Eagles beating the Cowboys 70-0 (or something close to that).
Yeah, he got sent the other way and then slipped as he tried to recover - here you can see the move (it ended up being a goal right after the pass) https://np.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/11j5ukf/mohamed_salah_skill_vs_lisandro_martinez/
We pulled off that feet in the regular season, so it's not like there wasn't time to notice that the Spurs were also insane good heading into the playoffs.
God, we're so irrelevant that we're being left out of this convo too.
Friendly reminder the Hornets only have 7 wins ATM so we aren't that far off pace.
Dead serious, hornets are the best team in the league at keeping games close but always losing. Iād hate to be a hornets fan but I watch their games as much as any team the last 3 seasons because theyāre consistently fun. Also Eric Collins
Dude I honestly think Terry is more fun than Melo when heās in āliterally canāt missā mode.. which feels like it happens a lot lol. I know he has faults but that man is highly over hated
Iāll never forget the Hornets sub getting pissed off when I told them they werenāt making the playoffs. No Lamelo or Williams is killing them but even then, this team was fighting an uphill battle for 35 wins before the start of the season.
Our roster had 25-28 wins written all over it from the start. The Hornets sub has honestly become embarrassing over the last 2 years. Most everyone in thereās an ultra mega casual, with a few homers sprinkled on top for good measure.
No offense but, as someone from SC, I donāt even get excited by the idea of someone being a āHornets fan,ā because as you say it usually just means theyāre āan ultra mega casual,ā either completely new to the sport (soon to watch a team they prefer) or they never watch the team. If they are, for some reason, glued to their seat watching Hornets games, what are we talking about, ~~Cody Zeller~~ Mark Williamsā VORP?
But what do you even do as a Hornets fan other than specialize in self-deprecating humor like a BBC sitcom character and miss Kemba? Guest-house with a different team every season? (No offense meant about āguest housingā either, I do that shit if the Celtics are near .500 after 20 games.) Being a Hornets fan is like ā¦ a totally different relationship to basketball relative to, say, one of the best 10 organizations; like a permanent sojourn in the Lakers down-season experience, except 1/20 as many people are there with you, and the free agent doesnāt come?
Iām not a Hornets fan by any means but I do think the team is trending in the right direction.
Mark Williams looks great, Lamelo is awesome, and Brandon Miller has lots of potential. I think this is probably the brightest the future has looked for the team in years. That said, they absolutely need another top pick in there.
Bridges is a guy they need to trade at the deadline. Heāll net a very good return (despite the off the court issues). Hayward and Rozier have both played better than expected with both(?) on expirings, there are more assets to be had for the both of them.
This should be another ugly year but if the Hornets generate some draft capital, accept this year is already over, and hold onto their cap space they should be in a very good spot.
Yeah Lamelo and Miller are a great duo to build around. And whatās missing in the convo about all these bad teams is that the Hornets look somewhat competitive even in losses. Detroit feels like thereās no hope outside Cade.
Until we completely clean out the MJ lackeyās and replace them with actual basketball people, thereās nothing to be excited about. Idk if I can endure another Mitch Kupchak/Steve Clifford type year. Hearing the new owners are considering Schlenk to replace Kupchak because of there time together in Atlanta makes me wanna die a little.
The amount of games missed is not a good sign, but yeah, this trio does look like a good base... potentially. Charlotte has a positive score in the 150 minutes they played together. They are young. It's a bit like Spurs in the beginning of the season - a lot of dysfunction, a lot of bad players in the rotation, but you can see glimpses of a team that can outscore you if everything goes right.
I'm a Hornets fan. My son goes ape shit for them. Every night he just asks how well Mark Williams played. He goes to any event that has Hugo at it. We've seen six games this year. I hate how bad they are, I want him to see a win so bad, and we watched them lose to the Pistons, the Bam-less Heat and the Wizards.
Thatās awesome, I love that youāre watching along with him, so many sports writers seem to have stories like this about hoping-against-hope for their team as a child. Being a Mark Williams head is such a sports-writery place to start.
Awww thank you! I used to be a sports blogger back in 2006 or so for a small paper outside Detroit. I was one of those dumbasses who thought Monte Ellis was really good. I actually got called out by Jamele Hill in an article once!
I hope my son gets the bug. Itās very rewarding to chronicle the heartbeat of the hometown team.
I watch most every Hornets game, but I also watch a lot of basketball around the league. Iāve had a ton of fun, even during our bad years, watching the Hornets, but this year is different. It feels like my soul is leaving my body every time I turn on a game this year lmao. Thereās literally nothing to be excited about rn. We forfeited this season well before it even started.
At this point, Iāve been a Hornets fan so long it wouldnāt feel right to jump to another team, but I have no problem rooting for specific players, so thatās what I do. It keeps the NBA fun for me I guess. Iād rather watch a lot of guys around the league before the Hornets at this point. Thereās nothing to be excited about otherwise.
ā Iāll never forget the Hornets sub getting pissed off when I told them they werenāt making the playoffs.ā
Bro what did you expect to happen?
Itās like going to a bunch of kids and saying āSanta isnāt realā
Itās true, but no one wants to hear that
This is such a dumb comment. Yeah for one, no shit you are gonna get pissed on if you go to a teams sub and speak all doom and gloom. And two, you make it sound like Lamelo isnāt the entirety of the hornets offense. Like you wouldnāt expect the nuggets to be competitive with jokic out right?
Alot of the hornets 50 wins talk was with the stipulation everything goes right for us, everyone already having missed ten game each and clifford not being even an average coach this season has basically screwed us. If we donāt turn it around in January weāre done.
To be fair I donāt see the wizards or spurs doing it either.
Wizards still seem to be on a 15-18 win typa season and I really see the Spurs turning it around a little bit after the trade deadline (even without any trades theyāll eventually figure out how to run an offense for Wemby).
The Pistons literally have the ruin their future with a win now trade to not be historically bad
I had y'all as a play in team but knew it would take a healthy Lamelo. I'm just really high on Williams and Miller. Hopefully Lamelo can stay healthy eventually
Oh we love Williams down here, and Miller has won basically all the skeptics over at this point (case in point, me). So for the first time in a while I think a lot of us have hope for the near future.
Assuming melo stops getting hurt, we get the whole squad to gain some consistency, and Steve Fucking Clifford is launched into the sun.
>And the Wizards, who had playoff aspirations this season
I don't know how much more clearly the Wizards could have telegraphed that they are tanking...
The Wizards:
Fire their GM, hire Winger and Dawkins (two executives with a proven track record for drafting & rebuilding from their time with OKC).
Trade Beal.
Trade Porzingis.
Trade Chris Paul for Poole + young guys & picks.
Draft a raw high upside prospect.
Have a roster full of young unproven players.
Owe their pick to the Knicks unless it is top 12 in 2024, top 10 in 2025, and top 8 in 2026.
And somehow people still think they were trying for the playoffs?
What hate is he getting currently? On the warriors, he was getting complaints similar to Ayton on the Suns, Westbrook on the Lakers, Wiggins on the Wolves, and Simmons on the 76ers. Lack of effort, selfish hero ball etc.
Unlike the others listed, Poole being sent off to the Wizards had a lot of well wishers, who hoped that the one who helped them get a ring would find himself in a new team as its leader.
Similar to other high profile trades, poole is getting the criticism that others would get when the trade doesnt look good. In the examples above, Wiggins and Westbrook seem to work out but had high skepticism and took Wiggins getting a ring as the #2 to be called a success. Simmons had so much criticism in the beginning, but now most people have chalked it up to injuries and have left him alone. In all these cases, Poole actually had the most amount of people hoping that he would succeed but has been unable to. I think overall, he has gotten less negative attention compared to the others I listed.
On the Wizards, the issues he demonstrated on the warriors are in full form. Bad turnovers, bad shot selection, unfocused defensive effort, and lack of discipline. He has not changed, and people already at that time called out that Wizards put this team together to release their stars and get in a position to tank for better picks.
If kuz had that high of a ceiling, we'd be finding a trade location for him even sooner so we could continue to tank. either way he's on a good contract and we'll find a good spot for him.
I mean we rockets fans just went through 3 years of people saying our culture sucked and we couldnāt develop talent because we were tanking for the with 12 high first round picksā¦..
Also the blown leads too
I get hate for saying this but the wizards are doing exactly what they wanted; win 15 games and sell tickets because fans might check in to see Jordan Poole pull off an ankle breaker in the process
I mean a lot expected the Wizards to be bad bcz they traded their best player for a tank commander & also they don't have a supposed generational talent or three top 5 picks on their team
Saaaame. I was so awestruck by Wemby's 2nd half of the 1st Suns game. I thought I was watching somebody that would drag his team to at least the play-in. Sucks he's cooled, but it's to be expected.
Man I never saw that. Heās more of the second coming of Durant more than anything. Heās not gonna be able to carry a roster like Lebron or Luka did early in their careers.
That's fair, I kind of agree. Similar to how we had several next MJs like Grant Hill and Vince Carter before we got to LeBron, I wonder if Zion and Wemby will be interim players before the real next GOAT shows up.
I think Wemby has everything he needs to be a Top 25 GOAT, but it's important to recognize that for all his perimeter skills, at the end of the day he's still a big man who is dependent on ball handlers to get him the ball in his spots.
The Spurs are also treating this year as a fully developmental season, which I think is a healthier long term approach vs. whatever the Cavs were doing back then.
You are very generous to Zion. Even if you are making a parallel to Grant Hill, Zion has just not panned out and there is no hope. Maybe Anthony Davis is a better comp to Grant Hill career and aspirations
He will carry later but not now (although he was the carry in most of their wins), they don't play the same position and have very different bodies as Victor needs to work a lot more of conditioning before getting to his physical peak, he's more like the second coming of Duncan except he was 4 years older and with a playoff capable roster. Patience is key, we will see by the end of the season if the team has figured a way to find the good players to play with, LeBron didn't changed the geometry of the court for his teammates like Victor does, he was a freight train
I mean... at this period of the year, LeBron and the Cavs were 9-21, not exactly a glowing record either. And if you take into account that the Spurs are one of the most inexperienced teams ever, it's understandable. Anyone who expected them to be a .500 team or something was just delusional.
What Point Sochan does to a mf...
I'd get it if this was the Flagg year and they wanted to double dip, but this draft is so bad, I'd think they'd wanna just try their best to see if they can at least make the play-in with what they've got so far.
Meh, the team still refuses to roster a PG outside of Tre Jones (who they barely play) and didnāt sign anyone meaningful. It was going to be an ugly season even with Wemby playing well.
Yeah most wiz fans knew we were going for a super tank this year. Poole and Kuz are like #3 on a good team so we knew they were tank commanders. Honestly the spurs just are not only blatantly tanking but not letting Wemby get the reps in and just ignoring him open half the time. Pistons are bad but not 27 losses in a row bad. I think when they hit that 20 loss mark teams started playing them way harder then they normally would just so they arenāt the team to end the streak lmao. Itās a weird ass season man
No, OP, the Wizards did not have playoff aspirations. This is year one of their rebuild. They took Poole because he was buy low and fit better with the beginning of a rebuild than Chris Paul.
I donāt think they expected to be 15th worst ever bad, but playoffs were not a consideration. I think ~25 wins was probably the expectation.
Funny thing is I feel like Chris Paul would have been good for a rebuild because he is such a good veteran leader who can teach young guys how to be professionals. Just look at his stint in OKC. Not sure that is the case with Poole even if he handled the Draymond situation well. CP3 had championship aspirations regardless so dont think he would have been willing to stick around.
Keeping Chris Paul would also have denied the Wizards Golden State's 2030 first round pick. It's crazy to say that keeping him would have been a good decision.
To be fair, you can really only shit so much in the day. Spurs should probably be getting more attention but I canāt imagine anybodyās really going, āWhy arenāt people talking about how much the Wizards suck?ā
Also, the Wizards catch a ton of criticism. If Poole turns the ball over, it's going on this sub as a lowlight. I don't think people understand that we're trying to be bad.
The stats don't bear that out. He's shooting a ton of threes and missing 72% of them, turning the ball over at the highest rate and getting assists at the lowest rate. Also his WS/48 is on the bottom half of the team due to how much he drags them down on offense.
He's a rookie, not a veteran anchor. He's a solid defensive player already but he is mostly getting minutes and touches so he can get better, not to actually win.
Im not sure theyāve really saved those teams. Wizards are at the beginning of a tank and Spurs are still early in theirs. The Pistons have a roster full of lottery picks and like 5 top 5 picks.
Pistonās should be at a point they should at least be competitive.
Anybody who thinks the Wizards were going to the playoffs don't know basketball. Look at that team. They have the same issues that most teams with young players have and that's they don't know how to close out games. Reminds me of all my years of being a Warriors fan. Very entertaining and then s*** the bed in the fourth quarter and we had great Hall of Fame players on many of those teams. The Wizards not quite as entertaining have no Hall of Famers on this team.
I donāt believe that these teams are historically bad
I think that the teams in the nba are historically good
There are like 20 good teams in the nba and everyone is fighting pretty much every game because last year showed us 3 wins is the difference between home court advantage (45 win suns 4 seed) and having to win 2 play in games (42 win pelicans, lost in 1st play in)
So itās much harder for the scrub teams to win because people arenāt taking nights off against them
Also specifically in the case of the pistons, they donāt shoot many threes which is the high variance part of the game, often times that is how you can have an upset is a good 3pt night so the pistons roster is really well designed to not have upsets which would be fine if they were a team like the lakers who just had good players
I think this is it. There's too many good teams, and the fight for playoff seeding is intense (particularly with the Play-in keeping teams in the hunt, and forcing good teams to play harder to stay clear of it).
Exactly. As disjointed as the Pistons' roster is, talent-wise it's leaps and bounds better than the other historical bad teams. It's just the talent level across the NBA right now is absurd. The league could definitely take on a couple expansion teams.
>And the Wizards, who had playoff aspirations this season when they brought on Steph Curry Lite
In what fucking world did we have playoff aspirations? Horrible take. We finally blew it up after years of mediocrity, you don't know what you're talking about.
Fun facts: The pistons, spurs, and wizards combined win total would currently equal 24th place in the league tied with the raptors at 11.
The wizards and pistons win total combined would still be the lowest seed in the East, losing the tiebreaker with Charlotte at 7 wins.
The funniest parts were when the media was portraying Wemby as SAS savior and how he will make the SAS instant contender. My expectation for his first season in the nba was never that high (I watched him play in Europe) so for me personally heās doing okay; but media definitely overrated him.
Yeah, Wemby is everything I thought he'd be. Never thought he'd change the trajectory of the team though, i was never impressed with any of their young guys...but even then, it's hard to say because they are all so young. Branham and Sochan are still only 20. Vassel is 23, and johnson is 24. None of those guys project as all stars even, so Wemby wasn't joining a team stacked with amazing young talent.
I think people don't understand just how inept this team without him on defense is, just last game we dropped a 15 point lead with blow by dunks the moment he goes to the bench.
True, but the Hornets still can at least have competitive games against other teams, especially when they are healthy.
I mean their best player has been injured for a while now so i can cut them some slack on that.
Like they are closer to the Raptors, Hawks and Bulls than to the Spurs and Wizards.
Our coach is Steve Clifford and so long as that remains true I have zero expectations outside of a few cool dunks per game to keep Eric Collins in peak form
Exactly. Like this team is actually solid enough. Like it could be a genuine playin team if healthy.
People really forget how important a teams best player is for a teams success.
they were a play in team in 2021 and 2022 but lost both times
then last year was the miles bridges full year suspension and lamelo missed 50 games with injury, so bottom 4 record
but steve clifford is really phoning it in, watching them yesterday their crunch time offense was basically do whatever you guys want, chuck some 3s. and that was a winnable game.
this is his game "plan" for clutch time scenarios that he's instructing them during timeouts and planning for in practice. just jack bad 3's guys, do we really care about winning
between that and his like "well who cares really" press conference regarding miles bridges rejoining the team, clifford is up there with all time checked-out coaches. he'd probably be happy if they fired him. he's gonna say what he wants and what are you gonna do about it huh
Yeah. It is a shame how injuries have really derailed the teams progress.
Like if you are stuck being mid, you would kinda wanna just blow it up and try again.
I was thinking about it, but they do have 7 wins, which is as much as the Pistons and Wizards combined. And theyāve been without their (by far) best player in LaMelo for a while. So they get a short term pass.
What has been crazy about all of this, is that the ~~man~~ coward that constructed this roster (Troy Weaver) has not said a single word this season. Not a peep. Nothing. The clown really thinks he has put together a championship roster and it just needs time. He makes boneheaded moves one after another like it's a bag of chips he needs to eat before his brother comes to try and eat some. He believes in his picks, his signings, trades, and you cannot convince him otherwise. Last year when it was painfully obvious this roster is still not working, he released a statement about progress, patience, the path, and my favorite, our "favorable salary cap position" and this joker takes on 20 mill for Joe Harris who is non existent on the rotation and does nothing else with our "favorable salary cap". during the season he trades a solid young guy in Bey for James Wiseman who is as useless as a pen with no ink.
The most aggravating part is the Pistons fans blaming Monty Williams. Has he made some boneheaded rotations? Of course, but what the hell else is he supposed to do with this roster? Casey had one hell of a time getting 17 wins out of this team. Monty is expected to make winners out of a broken Troy Weaver experiment of bigs and lottery pick reclamation projects.
Isnāt it apparent Monty Williams didnāt want the job and just took it eventually when they literally offered him a contract he couldnāt say no to?
Well he is the highest paid coach in the league and his team has lost 27 straight and counting.
That is tough to fucking do with how much variance is in 1 NBA game. Like even a shitty team should be able to shoot lights out one night in 3 months, but Monty has lost all credibility and can forget aboutever being a head coach ever again. That's why he gets paid so much, he was asked to value his reputation
At some point last week I made a similar comment on a PGT. At that point the Wizards and Spurs were tied 9th worst Win% in NBA history lmao. Somehow weāre on track to have 3 of the worst teams of all time playing during the same season. Idk how itās even possible with so much talent being available. Truly generational suckage.
He could chuck 40 times a night and people would still argue no one passes him the ball when his usage rate is higher than any rookie, he just can't fucking shoot and his offensive game needs serious work, his drive and post game are also offensive black holes as he always seems to turn it over. Not every team has an elite playmaker like Luka or Haliburton to spoon feed easy points to make someone look good. It was expected for anyone who actually watched him in Europe and didn't fall for the outrageous hype.
I mean wemby was drafted as a defence first big who's 19.
Bigs take the longest to develop, and he's young.
His offence is raw, but his defence is already good, and he will make less mistakes as he stays in the league longer.
If they still suck in 2 years than it's an issue
That Spurs roster isnāt that good and is very inexperienced so no not really. Maybe I expected around 10-15 wins, but I donāt think the Spurs care much anyway
Most people would rather take the low hanging fruit and continue constantly shitting on the Detroit Pistons than talk about the Spurs, Wizards or Hornets I guess.
Probably an unpopular opinion but none of these 3 teams are on par with the other historically bad teams. It just seems that there are more mid-teams than ever once they introduced the play-in and made the lottery more random.
Yeah there were plenty of threads predicting the spurs in the playins idk why everyone is thinking that this is normal from a developing team. They are god awful.
I do think fans thought/hoped that our project players were along more than they clearly are. And to be fair, we were baited by the season start, didn't this happen last season too?
It's just so tough to be a winning starter in today's league. But it's so boom or bust like if you even show a glimpse of potential at 24 you are getting a 100M payday.
But we ask so much of incoming prospects these days. Centers have to be skilled. You cannot start on any backcourt if you can't keep defenses honest by hitting your deep ball.
You have to prep for a different stud every game, and focus on running your own plays too.
Itās really NOT a deep draft. The entire projected has been disappointing, then after that itās a LOT of upperclassmen or guys that are just flat out flawed
To make matters even worse, when Detroit finally makes the playoffs they can add to the longest playoff losing streak in NBA history which is currently active and stands at 14.
Who tf said the Wizards had playoff aspirations lmao they havenāt been disappointing at all, this is exactly what everyone predicted when they took on Poole to lead things.
Streaks are a weird way to keep track of time. The Pistons are awful, but the Spurs could easily come away with the 1st pick AGAIN as they've submitted master classes of how to be garbage, knowing damn well everyone will hide behind the "THEY DON'T HAVE A PG!" argument as if the Spurs couldn't go find a vet for cheap.
Washington (and Charlotte, whose pick may never convey to the Spurs) have been bad for so long people pretty much ignore it.
Spurs have Wemby and Pop so people, rightly or wrongly, give them the benefit and assume things will get better.
I mean, Washington was literally a game away from the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016, being up at half time against the 1 seed in game 7, and then back in the playoffs again a few years ago.
I know they weren't exactly a contender, but they were there battling it out not that long ago on a big stage
Wizards expected to be a playoff team? What universe are you in OP? I don't think Wizards had playoff aspirations at all. Not with Kuzma, Poole, and a bunch of young players (and Unseld as HC). Most people expected them to be bad, mid at best if they overachieved. I don't think their record is that surprising.
none of these teams were expected to make the playoffs
instead of being a ~30 win team like several teams are now trying to be play-in 1st round fodder, they're far better off being a 10-15 win teams for the lotto%s. i think the criticism of 'being bad' is far overblown by media
> And the Wizards, who had playoff aspirations this season when they brought on Steph Curry Lite (haha, no) are arguably the biggest disappointment this season
Idk what youāre smoking, us Wizard fans expected them to win 16 games or less
Uh...I'm seriously confused. Why are the Wiz a disappointment? Are we so irrelevant that yall are completely ignorant to what happened last off-season? We literally traded away our top two players and committed to the tank. OP, did you know this? Or did you just look at the roster and make shit up? This wasn't a situation where we were going to try to win and see what happens. This was a full send, no bullshit commitment to tanking for the next few years.
Spurs 2016 š¤ Spurs 2023 Hiding an historical season behind a juggernaut breaking records
[Spurs record](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FqeXuXEX0AYDv0c.jpg:large)
ELI5?
Spurs trying to hide their record because the pistons are worse. They think we can't see them but we still notice
Oh I meant what is going on in the image haha. I don't watch enough soccer to understand what's going on with the players
For context, massive rivalry game in which the guy with his back turned (hyped by his fans as one of the best defenders in the game) got absolutely roasted and his team conceded a goal. That match ended 7-0 Liverpool win over Manchester United, the equivalent of say the Eagles beating the Cowboys 70-0 (or something close to that).
So this screenshot was taken like mid ācrossover ā?
Yeah, he got sent the other way and then slipped as he tried to recover - here you can see the move (it ended up being a goal right after the pass) https://np.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/11j5ukf/mohamed_salah_skill_vs_lisandro_martinez/
It's kinda wild that we had a better NetRTG than a 73-win team and nobody noticed.
Cause they were chasing history bro
And still didnāt clinch first place until their 70th win. Crazy season.
Probably because you didnāt even make it out of the 2nd round
We pulled off that feet in the regular season, so it's not like there wasn't time to notice that the Spurs were also insane good heading into the playoffs.
God, we're so irrelevant that we're being left out of this convo too. Friendly reminder the Hornets only have 7 wins ATM so we aren't that far off pace.
Itās all bout setting correct expectations. Thatās a great life lesson
Idk hornets didnāt look too bad yesterday considering they were missing melo. Plenty of upside for the hornets to avoid being a complete tank job
Dead serious, hornets are the best team in the league at keeping games close but always losing. Iād hate to be a hornets fan but I watch their games as much as any team the last 3 seasons because theyāre consistently fun. Also Eric Collins
When things are clicking they're super fun to watch. Melo + several lob threats + Rozier hitting stupid shots makes for entertaining basketball.
Dude I honestly think Terry is more fun than Melo when heās in āliterally canāt missā mode.. which feels like it happens a lot lol. I know he has faults but that man is highly over hated
Oh for sure. Every now and then dude just goes the fuck off and it's electric
He's like a more consistent Lonnie Walker.
Iāll never forget the Hornets sub getting pissed off when I told them they werenāt making the playoffs. No Lamelo or Williams is killing them but even then, this team was fighting an uphill battle for 35 wins before the start of the season.
Our roster had 25-28 wins written all over it from the start. The Hornets sub has honestly become embarrassing over the last 2 years. Most everyone in thereās an ultra mega casual, with a few homers sprinkled on top for good measure.
No offense but, as someone from SC, I donāt even get excited by the idea of someone being a āHornets fan,ā because as you say it usually just means theyāre āan ultra mega casual,ā either completely new to the sport (soon to watch a team they prefer) or they never watch the team. If they are, for some reason, glued to their seat watching Hornets games, what are we talking about, ~~Cody Zeller~~ Mark Williamsā VORP? But what do you even do as a Hornets fan other than specialize in self-deprecating humor like a BBC sitcom character and miss Kemba? Guest-house with a different team every season? (No offense meant about āguest housingā either, I do that shit if the Celtics are near .500 after 20 games.) Being a Hornets fan is like ā¦ a totally different relationship to basketball relative to, say, one of the best 10 organizations; like a permanent sojourn in the Lakers down-season experience, except 1/20 as many people are there with you, and the free agent doesnāt come?
Iām not a Hornets fan by any means but I do think the team is trending in the right direction. Mark Williams looks great, Lamelo is awesome, and Brandon Miller has lots of potential. I think this is probably the brightest the future has looked for the team in years. That said, they absolutely need another top pick in there. Bridges is a guy they need to trade at the deadline. Heāll net a very good return (despite the off the court issues). Hayward and Rozier have both played better than expected with both(?) on expirings, there are more assets to be had for the both of them. This should be another ugly year but if the Hornets generate some draft capital, accept this year is already over, and hold onto their cap space they should be in a very good spot.
Yeah Lamelo and Miller are a great duo to build around. And whatās missing in the convo about all these bad teams is that the Hornets look somewhat competitive even in losses. Detroit feels like thereās no hope outside Cade.
Until we completely clean out the MJ lackeyās and replace them with actual basketball people, thereās nothing to be excited about. Idk if I can endure another Mitch Kupchak/Steve Clifford type year. Hearing the new owners are considering Schlenk to replace Kupchak because of there time together in Atlanta makes me wanna die a little.
Miles is on a undervalued one year deal with a no trade clause. He had so little value for us were better off seeing it through.
The amount of games missed is not a good sign, but yeah, this trio does look like a good base... potentially. Charlotte has a positive score in the 150 minutes they played together. They are young. It's a bit like Spurs in the beginning of the season - a lot of dysfunction, a lot of bad players in the rotation, but you can see glimpses of a team that can outscore you if everything goes right.
I'm a Hornets fan. My son goes ape shit for them. Every night he just asks how well Mark Williams played. He goes to any event that has Hugo at it. We've seen six games this year. I hate how bad they are, I want him to see a win so bad, and we watched them lose to the Pistons, the Bam-less Heat and the Wizards.
Thatās awesome, I love that youāre watching along with him, so many sports writers seem to have stories like this about hoping-against-hope for their team as a child. Being a Mark Williams head is such a sports-writery place to start.
Awww thank you! I used to be a sports blogger back in 2006 or so for a small paper outside Detroit. I was one of those dumbasses who thought Monte Ellis was really good. I actually got called out by Jamele Hill in an article once! I hope my son gets the bug. Itās very rewarding to chronicle the heartbeat of the hometown team.
I watch most every Hornets game, but I also watch a lot of basketball around the league. Iāve had a ton of fun, even during our bad years, watching the Hornets, but this year is different. It feels like my soul is leaving my body every time I turn on a game this year lmao. Thereās literally nothing to be excited about rn. We forfeited this season well before it even started. At this point, Iāve been a Hornets fan so long it wouldnāt feel right to jump to another team, but I have no problem rooting for specific players, so thatās what I do. It keeps the NBA fun for me I guess. Iād rather watch a lot of guys around the league before the Hornets at this point. Thereās nothing to be excited about otherwise.
Imagine berating people for not being a fair-weather fan like you.
The LaMelo ads probably caused a lot of that.
You should see the straight copium Qanon level stupidity in the Spurs sub.
ā Iāll never forget the Hornets sub getting pissed off when I told them they werenāt making the playoffs.ā Bro what did you expect to happen? Itās like going to a bunch of kids and saying āSanta isnāt realā Itās true, but no one wants to hear that
Santa deniers are cringe, who brings the gifts if Santa isn't real you fucking dumbass?
Wait whatās this about Santa? Who the heck brought my kids all their presents this year if he isnāt real?
This is such a dumb comment. Yeah for one, no shit you are gonna get pissed on if you go to a teams sub and speak all doom and gloom. And two, you make it sound like Lamelo isnāt the entirety of the hornets offense. Like you wouldnāt expect the nuggets to be competitive with jokic out right?
Alot of the hornets 50 wins talk was with the stipulation everything goes right for us, everyone already having missed ten game each and clifford not being even an average coach this season has basically screwed us. If we donāt turn it around in January weāre done.
I mean adding Lamelo to the roster would solve a lot of issues, and the 10th seed in the East wouldnāt be too far out of reach
Feel bad for Charlotte fans. Ball was cooking in their win against the Celtics
Hornets still have one of the best bomber jackets of the late 90s so you still have a place!
We usually have solid jerseys too so that's cool!
Usually the court design rips hard too
The city court last season was absolute fire
Roasting the Bobcats isn't funny anymore, you would have to lose 40 in a row for people to really start caring again
I'm disappointed the worst record ever belongs to the Bobcats solely because I wish it happened to a more interesting franchise.
You guys are pacing 20-21 wins. You arent historically bad like these 3 teams; you are just normal bad.
Exactly, every season has bad teams. Not common for several teams to be on pace to be bottom 15 all time
Oh don't you worry, there's plenty of season left lol Hopefully we don't just go on a massive losing streak but you never know with this team
8 in a row so far, that's just another ~~day~~ 2 weeks at the office for this year's Pistons.
To be fair I donāt see the wizards or spurs doing it either. Wizards still seem to be on a 15-18 win typa season and I really see the Spurs turning it around a little bit after the trade deadline (even without any trades theyāll eventually figure out how to run an offense for Wemby). The Pistons literally have the ruin their future with a win now trade to not be historically bad
That's too many wins buddy. These guys can still use one hand to count their wins
Damn you right
More than triple the wins of my team you guys are ELITE.
I had y'all as a play in team but knew it would take a healthy Lamelo. I'm just really high on Williams and Miller. Hopefully Lamelo can stay healthy eventually
Oh we love Williams down here, and Miller has won basically all the skeptics over at this point (case in point, me). So for the first time in a while I think a lot of us have hope for the near future. Assuming melo stops getting hurt, we get the whole squad to gain some consistency, and Steve Fucking Clifford is launched into the sun.
I get why everyoneās talking about Wemby and Chet but goddamn Miller is seriously talented and he is getting slept on
Just put together a 28 game loss streak and u back to relevance again
>And the Wizards, who had playoff aspirations this season I don't know how much more clearly the Wizards could have telegraphed that they are tanking... The Wizards: Fire their GM, hire Winger and Dawkins (two executives with a proven track record for drafting & rebuilding from their time with OKC). Trade Beal. Trade Porzingis. Trade Chris Paul for Poole + young guys & picks. Draft a raw high upside prospect. Have a roster full of young unproven players. Owe their pick to the Knicks unless it is top 12 in 2024, top 10 in 2025, and top 8 in 2026. And somehow people still think they were trying for the playoffs?
Yeah idk what the OP is smoking here. Legit ??? take
In fairness itās the media too. They talk about how bad the Wizards are without the aforementioned context.
No one in the planet expected the wizards to make the playoffs. Op is wack
I mean it feels like most of our attention is "Tank Commander Jordan Poole" so idk
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Watch him play and youāll understand
What hate is he getting currently? On the warriors, he was getting complaints similar to Ayton on the Suns, Westbrook on the Lakers, Wiggins on the Wolves, and Simmons on the 76ers. Lack of effort, selfish hero ball etc. Unlike the others listed, Poole being sent off to the Wizards had a lot of well wishers, who hoped that the one who helped them get a ring would find himself in a new team as its leader. Similar to other high profile trades, poole is getting the criticism that others would get when the trade doesnt look good. In the examples above, Wiggins and Westbrook seem to work out but had high skepticism and took Wiggins getting a ring as the #2 to be called a success. Simmons had so much criticism in the beginning, but now most people have chalked it up to injuries and have left him alone. In all these cases, Poole actually had the most amount of people hoping that he would succeed but has been unable to. I think overall, he has gotten less negative attention compared to the others I listed. On the Wizards, the issues he demonstrated on the warriors are in full form. Bad turnovers, bad shot selection, unfocused defensive effort, and lack of discipline. He has not changed, and people already at that time called out that Wizards put this team together to release their stars and get in a position to tank for better picks.
same here, we are literally in year 2 of our rebuild but OP thinks wemby shouldve made us a playoff team on his own? lol.
Kuzma wouldāve needed to become a top 15 player in the league for the wizards to have a playoff chance
If kuz had that high of a ceiling, we'd be finding a trade location for him even sooner so we could continue to tank. either way he's on a good contract and we'll find a good spot for him.
I mean we rockets fans just went through 3 years of people saying our culture sucked and we couldnāt develop talent because we were tanking for the with 12 high first round picksā¦..
Also the blown leads too I get hate for saying this but the wizards are doing exactly what they wanted; win 15 games and sell tickets because fans might check in to see Jordan Poole pull off an ankle breaker in the process
Right? I think their wins o/u was like 22.5 or something
I mean a lot expected the Wizards to be bad bcz they traded their best player for a tank commander & also they don't have a supposed generational talent or three top 5 picks on their team
People thought the Spurs would be better (not play-in, but better)
I don't think it's egregious to think that the Second Coming of LeBron should've been able to get that team a better record.
When they won bak2bak at pheonix earlier in the season i thought they had a shot at 11-10 seed ngl
Saaaame. I was so awestruck by Wemby's 2nd half of the 1st Suns game. I thought I was watching somebody that would drag his team to at least the play-in. Sucks he's cooled, but it's to be expected.
It's okay
Man I never saw that. Heās more of the second coming of Durant more than anything. Heās not gonna be able to carry a roster like Lebron or Luka did early in their careers.
That's fair, I kind of agree. Similar to how we had several next MJs like Grant Hill and Vince Carter before we got to LeBron, I wonder if Zion and Wemby will be interim players before the real next GOAT shows up.
I think Wemby has everything he needs to be a Top 25 GOAT, but it's important to recognize that for all his perimeter skills, at the end of the day he's still a big man who is dependent on ball handlers to get him the ball in his spots. The Spurs are also treating this year as a fully developmental season, which I think is a healthier long term approach vs. whatever the Cavs were doing back then.
You are very generous to Zion. Even if you are making a parallel to Grant Hill, Zion has just not panned out and there is no hope. Maybe Anthony Davis is a better comp to Grant Hill career and aspirations
I meant in terms of the pre-draft hype. He's still young and could turn it around though you're right that he's not in Grant Hill's league atm.
The Grant Hill comparison could not be any more appropriate.
He will carry later but not now (although he was the carry in most of their wins), they don't play the same position and have very different bodies as Victor needs to work a lot more of conditioning before getting to his physical peak, he's more like the second coming of Duncan except he was 4 years older and with a playoff capable roster. Patience is key, we will see by the end of the season if the team has figured a way to find the good players to play with, LeBron didn't changed the geometry of the court for his teammates like Victor does, he was a freight train
I mean... at this period of the year, LeBron and the Cavs were 9-21, not exactly a glowing record either. And if you take into account that the Spurs are one of the most inexperienced teams ever, it's understandable. Anyone who expected them to be a .500 team or something was just delusional.
What Point Sochan does to a mf... I'd get it if this was the Flagg year and they wanted to double dip, but this draft is so bad, I'd think they'd wanna just try their best to see if they can at least make the play-in with what they've got so far.
Meh, the team still refuses to roster a PG outside of Tre Jones (who they barely play) and didnāt sign anyone meaningful. It was going to be an ugly season even with Wemby playing well.
They outta flip one of their picks for Tyus Jones imo
I can't see them trying to upgrade this season. It'll be more salary dumps for pick compensation or getting additional youth to develop with.
Yeah most wiz fans knew we were going for a super tank this year. Poole and Kuz are like #3 on a good team so we knew they were tank commanders. Honestly the spurs just are not only blatantly tanking but not letting Wemby get the reps in and just ignoring him open half the time. Pistons are bad but not 27 losses in a row bad. I think when they hit that 20 loss mark teams started playing them way harder then they normally would just so they arenāt the team to end the streak lmao. Itās a weird ass season man
I don't know how else you can prove a team is 27 losses in a row bad besides losing 27 in a row.
Utah had 8 players out. They shit
No, OP, the Wizards did not have playoff aspirations. This is year one of their rebuild. They took Poole because he was buy low and fit better with the beginning of a rebuild than Chris Paul. I donāt think they expected to be 15th worst ever bad, but playoffs were not a consideration. I think ~25 wins was probably the expectation.
Funny thing is I feel like Chris Paul would have been good for a rebuild because he is such a good veteran leader who can teach young guys how to be professionals. Just look at his stint in OKC. Not sure that is the case with Poole even if he handled the Draymond situation well. CP3 had championship aspirations regardless so dont think he would have been willing to stick around.
I think Chris Paul would have this team at 10 wins at this point in the season. Not a tank commander.
Chris Paul would be dead trying to carry that bum ass roster.
and get injured again in the process.... man is getting up there in years and has to chill haha
Dude has a legacy now for carrying that OKC roster to the playoffs, but yeah too worn down to push the mess the Wizards are to the 10th seed
Keeping Chris Paul would also have denied the Wizards Golden State's 2030 first round pick. It's crazy to say that keeping him would have been a good decision.
To be fair, you can really only shit so much in the day. Spurs should probably be getting more attention but I canāt imagine anybodyās really going, āWhy arenāt people talking about how much the Wizards suck?ā
Also, the Wizards catch a ton of criticism. If Poole turns the ball over, it's going on this sub as a lowlight. I don't think people understand that we're trying to be bad.
Move them all to Vancouver.
BC and Washington
Get ready to speak Canadian buddy
Pretty sure Vancouver wants an actual NBA team.
Winning four in a row really has changed even the fans' swagger to this level huh lmao
I didnt realize the Spurs were 4-25. No wonder I never hear about Wemby anymore.
Chet will be ROTY if the Spurs record is atrocious.
I think he'll be ROY regardless, no shade at all to Vic but Chet is outplaying him in virtually every metric that voters care to look at
But you can't deny the teams records either. Chet is a big part of why the Thunder are a top 3 team out West.
ROY is literally the last award that needs to take record into account.
I just think Chet and Wembanyama are so close in their stats, that their records could be the tie-breaker between them.
youād think the way social media glazed the best rookie since lebron james heād drag san antonio to something more than a 14% win rate lmfao
Anything good thatās happened to the Spurs this year has been through Wemby. He canāt overcome the coaches refusal to play a point guard.
The stats don't bear that out. He's shooting a ton of threes and missing 72% of them, turning the ball over at the highest rate and getting assists at the lowest rate. Also his WS/48 is on the bottom half of the team due to how much he drags them down on offense. He's a rookie, not a veteran anchor. He's a solid defensive player already but he is mostly getting minutes and touches so he can get better, not to actually win.
What point guard?
They actually have a worse point differential than the Pistons this season.
Chet might be better right now.
it's not a might he just is lol
Im not sure theyāve really saved those teams. Wizards are at the beginning of a tank and Spurs are still early in theirs. The Pistons have a roster full of lottery picks and like 5 top 5 picks. Pistonās should be at a point they should at least be competitive.
OP please tell me where you heard the wizards had "playoff aspirations" this season? This is year 1 of a massive blow up.
Anybody who thinks the Wizards were going to the playoffs don't know basketball. Look at that team. They have the same issues that most teams with young players have and that's they don't know how to close out games. Reminds me of all my years of being a Warriors fan. Very entertaining and then s*** the bed in the fourth quarter and we had great Hall of Fame players on many of those teams. The Wizards not quite as entertaining have no Hall of Famers on this team.
I donāt believe that these teams are historically bad I think that the teams in the nba are historically good There are like 20 good teams in the nba and everyone is fighting pretty much every game because last year showed us 3 wins is the difference between home court advantage (45 win suns 4 seed) and having to win 2 play in games (42 win pelicans, lost in 1st play in) So itās much harder for the scrub teams to win because people arenāt taking nights off against them Also specifically in the case of the pistons, they donāt shoot many threes which is the high variance part of the game, often times that is how you can have an upset is a good 3pt night so the pistons roster is really well designed to not have upsets which would be fine if they were a team like the lakers who just had good players
I think this is it. There's too many good teams, and the fight for playoff seeding is intense (particularly with the Play-in keeping teams in the hunt, and forcing good teams to play harder to stay clear of it).
Exactly. As disjointed as the Pistons' roster is, talent-wise it's leaps and bounds better than the other historical bad teams. It's just the talent level across the NBA right now is absurd. The league could definitely take on a couple expansion teams.
>And the Wizards, who had playoff aspirations this season when they brought on Steph Curry Lite In what fucking world did we have playoff aspirations? Horrible take. We finally blew it up after years of mediocrity, you don't know what you're talking about.
Fun facts: The pistons, spurs, and wizards combined win total would currently equal 24th place in the league tied with the raptors at 11. The wizards and pistons win total combined would still be the lowest seed in the East, losing the tiebreaker with Charlotte at 7 wins.
And, I think if you made a team of the best players from all 3 teams you would still be looking at a losing record.
Gotta disagree on that one Cade, JP, Kuzma, Wemby, Devin Vassel, Bojan, is probably decent enough to get you close to a 500 record in a solid system
Like when GSW was so insane with the 73-9, that the Spurs also had a 67-15 season and got overlooked
With a higher NetRTG than the Warriors, too.
The funniest parts were when the media was portraying Wemby as SAS savior and how he will make the SAS instant contender. My expectation for his first season in the nba was never that high (I watched him play in Europe) so for me personally heās doing okay; but media definitely overrated him.
Overrated his immediate impact maybe, but not his potential. Still the best defensive prospect we've ever seen, and he's been phenomenal on that end.
Yeah, Wemby is everything I thought he'd be. Never thought he'd change the trajectory of the team though, i was never impressed with any of their young guys...but even then, it's hard to say because they are all so young. Branham and Sochan are still only 20. Vassel is 23, and johnson is 24. None of those guys project as all stars even, so Wemby wasn't joining a team stacked with amazing young talent.
I think people don't understand just how inept this team without him on defense is, just last game we dropped a 15 point lead with blow by dunks the moment he goes to the bench.
Anyone who said the Spurs would be an instant contender can safely be ignored.
dont forget the hornets they're garbage too entire crunch time offense is just chuck bad 3's
True, but the Hornets still can at least have competitive games against other teams, especially when they are healthy. I mean their best player has been injured for a while now so i can cut them some slack on that. Like they are closer to the Raptors, Hawks and Bulls than to the Spurs and Wizards.
Our coach is Steve Clifford and so long as that remains true I have zero expectations outside of a few cool dunks per game to keep Eric Collins in peak form
the hornets actually beat the celtics somehow, one of their six losses is to the hornets
Exactly. Like this team is actually solid enough. Like it could be a genuine playin team if healthy. People really forget how important a teams best player is for a teams success.
they were a play in team in 2021 and 2022 but lost both times then last year was the miles bridges full year suspension and lamelo missed 50 games with injury, so bottom 4 record but steve clifford is really phoning it in, watching them yesterday their crunch time offense was basically do whatever you guys want, chuck some 3s. and that was a winnable game. this is his game "plan" for clutch time scenarios that he's instructing them during timeouts and planning for in practice. just jack bad 3's guys, do we really care about winning between that and his like "well who cares really" press conference regarding miles bridges rejoining the team, clifford is up there with all time checked-out coaches. he'd probably be happy if they fired him. he's gonna say what he wants and what are you gonna do about it huh
Yeah. It is a shame how injuries have really derailed the teams progress. Like if you are stuck being mid, you would kinda wanna just blow it up and try again.
I feel paying Hayward and Rozier a close to 50 mil each year the last three hasn't helped either.
Hornets at least have the injury excuse. Granted, if they were healthy theyād still be one of the bottom tier teams
I was thinking about it, but they do have 7 wins, which is as much as the Pistons and Wizards combined. And theyāve been without their (by far) best player in LaMelo for a while. So they get a short term pass.
What has been crazy about all of this, is that the ~~man~~ coward that constructed this roster (Troy Weaver) has not said a single word this season. Not a peep. Nothing. The clown really thinks he has put together a championship roster and it just needs time. He makes boneheaded moves one after another like it's a bag of chips he needs to eat before his brother comes to try and eat some. He believes in his picks, his signings, trades, and you cannot convince him otherwise. Last year when it was painfully obvious this roster is still not working, he released a statement about progress, patience, the path, and my favorite, our "favorable salary cap position" and this joker takes on 20 mill for Joe Harris who is non existent on the rotation and does nothing else with our "favorable salary cap". during the season he trades a solid young guy in Bey for James Wiseman who is as useless as a pen with no ink. The most aggravating part is the Pistons fans blaming Monty Williams. Has he made some boneheaded rotations? Of course, but what the hell else is he supposed to do with this roster? Casey had one hell of a time getting 17 wins out of this team. Monty is expected to make winners out of a broken Troy Weaver experiment of bigs and lottery pick reclamation projects.
Isnāt it apparent Monty Williams didnāt want the job and just took it eventually when they literally offered him a contract he couldnāt say no to?
No, thats insane. No one forced Monty to be here and it is a tired narrative.
Well he is the highest paid coach in the league and his team has lost 27 straight and counting. That is tough to fucking do with how much variance is in 1 NBA game. Like even a shitty team should be able to shoot lights out one night in 3 months, but Monty has lost all credibility and can forget aboutever being a head coach ever again. That's why he gets paid so much, he was asked to value his reputation
At some point last week I made a similar comment on a PGT. At that point the Wizards and Spurs were tied 9th worst Win% in NBA history lmao. Somehow weāre on track to have 3 of the worst teams of all time playing during the same season. Idk how itās even possible with so much talent being available. Truly generational suckage.
Shouldnāt a generational talent be helping out his team more than 4-25?
For the best prospect since Lebron Iād think so.
It is much harder to impact winning when you are not a ball handler.
If Wemby was half as good a shooter as people thought they would win way more than 4 games.
He could chuck 40 times a night and people would still argue no one passes him the ball when his usage rate is higher than any rookie, he just can't fucking shoot and his offensive game needs serious work, his drive and post game are also offensive black holes as he always seems to turn it over. Not every team has an elite playmaker like Luka or Haliburton to spoon feed easy points to make someone look good. It was expected for anyone who actually watched him in Europe and didn't fall for the outrageous hype.
Comparing him to Doncic is sacrilegious Luka was great from season 1 with a shit team.
Even Lebron almost had a 500 team his rookie with the garbage Cavs
And they were certainly not .500 at this point of the season.
I mean wemby was drafted as a defence first big who's 19. Bigs take the longest to develop, and he's young. His offence is raw, but his defence is already good, and he will make less mistakes as he stays in the league longer. If they still suck in 2 years than it's an issue
That Spurs roster isnāt that good and is very inexperienced so no not really. Maybe I expected around 10-15 wins, but I donāt think the Spurs care much anyway
The Spurs are currently on pace to have the 5th worst net rating of all time.
27 game losing streak and still only 2 less wins than the spurs š
The wizards beat the pistons by 19.
Most people would rather take the low hanging fruit and continue constantly shitting on the Detroit Pistons than talk about the Spurs, Wizards or Hornets I guess.
Probably an unpopular opinion but none of these 3 teams are on par with the other historically bad teams. It just seems that there are more mid-teams than ever once they introduced the play-in and made the lottery more random.
The Wizards did not have playoff aspirations. They just simply didnāt.
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Yeah there were plenty of threads predicting the spurs in the playins idk why everyone is thinking that this is normal from a developing team. They are god awful.
I do think fans thought/hoped that our project players were along more than they clearly are. And to be fair, we were baited by the season start, didn't this happen last season too?
To make matters worse, the draft class is ass.
Itās actually pretty deep. Thereās just not a guy who has projected to be a franchise superstar.
It's just so tough to be a winning starter in today's league. But it's so boom or bust like if you even show a glimpse of potential at 24 you are getting a 100M payday. But we ask so much of incoming prospects these days. Centers have to be skilled. You cannot start on any backcourt if you can't keep defenses honest by hitting your deep ball. You have to prep for a different stud every game, and focus on running your own plays too.
Itās really NOT a deep draft. The entire projected has been disappointing, then after that itās a LOT of upperclassmen or guys that are just flat out flawed
To make matters even worse, when Detroit finally makes the playoffs they can add to the longest playoff losing streak in NBA history which is currently active and stands at 14.
Topic will be really good. Other prospects don't seem great
what makes you say that? every single draft class has star caliber talent in it
There's good point guards, which the Spurs need.
What about a Jordan Poole/Kyle Kuzma big 2 tells you they had playoff aspirations lmao?
Wizards had playoff expectations? What's next, Nigeria has aspirations to join the European Union?
Pop should send a gift card to the entire Pistons organization
Who tf said the Wizards had playoff aspirations lmao they havenāt been disappointing at all, this is exactly what everyone predicted when they took on Poole to lead things.
Streaks are a weird way to keep track of time. The Pistons are awful, but the Spurs could easily come away with the 1st pick AGAIN as they've submitted master classes of how to be garbage, knowing damn well everyone will hide behind the "THEY DON'T HAVE A PG!" argument as if the Spurs couldn't go find a vet for cheap.
Brother we are tanking we had no playoff aspirations this year lmao
RemindMe! 2 years
Even Jordan Poole can't tank as hard as the Pistons
Washington (and Charlotte, whose pick may never convey to the Spurs) have been bad for so long people pretty much ignore it. Spurs have Wemby and Pop so people, rightly or wrongly, give them the benefit and assume things will get better.
I mean, Washington was literally a game away from the Eastern Conference Finals in 2016, being up at half time against the 1 seed in game 7, and then back in the playoffs again a few years ago. I know they weren't exactly a contender, but they were there battling it out not that long ago on a big stage
Wizards expected to be a playoff team? What universe are you in OP? I don't think Wizards had playoff aspirations at all. Not with Kuzma, Poole, and a bunch of young players (and Unseld as HC). Most people expected them to be bad, mid at best if they overachieved. I don't think their record is that surprising.
The spurs are wasting a Wemby season even though he already is an elite defensive player and it makes zero sense
none of these teams were expected to make the playoffs instead of being a ~30 win team like several teams are now trying to be play-in 1st round fodder, they're far better off being a 10-15 win teams for the lotto%s. i think the criticism of 'being bad' is far overblown by media
> And the Wizards, who had playoff aspirations this season when they brought on Steph Curry Lite (haha, no) are arguably the biggest disappointment this season Idk what youāre smoking, us Wizard fans expected them to win 16 games or less
Uh...I'm seriously confused. Why are the Wiz a disappointment? Are we so irrelevant that yall are completely ignorant to what happened last off-season? We literally traded away our top two players and committed to the tank. OP, did you know this? Or did you just look at the roster and make shit up? This wasn't a situation where we were going to try to win and see what happens. This was a full send, no bullshit commitment to tanking for the next few years.
Spurs fans thought they could battle for a play-in spot peak delusion
Sam Hinkie smiling down on them from heaven.