Unless they're conserving every bit of energy for Indiana tomorrow, the Sixers look like they're very much ready for this all to be over.
I had already turned it off, but it seems like the Sixers had a pretty good fourth quarter to make it respectable. Really don't know why VJ played 40 minutes on the front end of a back to back, though. Nurse has to go.
Cavs gonna rest players against the Hawks despite still in a seeding battle. Meanwhile, Pistons going full strength against Hornets despite already locking up their seeding. So frustrating lol
I hope they sit some guys after halftime. I don’t mind Cade being ramped up a bit after missing time but I’m not sure we need to play all starters 30+
I’m actually pretty worried Hornets would lose to Heat in a 9/10 play-in. The Heat are about as mediocre as you can get, but they have a lot of playoff experience compared to Charlotte. In a one game sample, they could absolutely knock us out. Again, wouldn’t be the end of the world. We’re still clearly building to a bright future. Would just suck we played at such a high level for over half the season and don’t even make it to the playoffs.
All the anti-tanking options are rough. Just give the non-playoff teams a ping pong ball per win. The teams in that middle purgatory finally get out.
I think going back to how we used to do it would be fine. No flatten odds brackets. Just a normal ass bottom to top percentage based system. They implemented the current mildly flattened odds system and the problem gradually worsened to where it is now. The best way to stop the tanking is to appropriately punish teams for doing it via fines. If they reach a certain number of fines take away a second round pick or something.
I was thinking about the 65 game rule too and it’s odd to me that either side (players or owners) agreed to this. Majority of the debate has been around the players perspective. But the owners should have a gripe too. There’s definitely scenarios where a player on a team who is deemed important and the team intends to re-sign, but the player isn’t an All-NBA level guy. There are plenty of players like this. Well now, this same player might sneak into an All-NBA team. As a result, they’re going to hit incentives and make more money. And especially with their next contract, they’ll have a right to higher salary. Especially if it’s a max player, it can be a huge difference and affect the plan/structuring you anticipated for your team. Maybe I’m reading into it too much and overthinking it haha but I can see stuff like this happening. And it goes both ways. Players who were on their way to making All-NBA and increasing their max contract but then only play 60 games, they’re out tons of money. It’s bullshit imo. Thanks for listening to my Ted talks and rambles.
The 65 rule was definitely made because of Embiid getting first team and MVP votes despite missing a lot of games