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julius said:
Not saying he's not impressive, but that doesn't look super fast.

2 pre-season games don't mean much, and I'm sure if he was a Blazer I'd be fine with that production, but it seems kind of average.

Granted, like I said, it's just 2 pre-season games.
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Wait?
Did you look at the dunk? His head was at the rim. I don't see slow, I see smooth and effortless. That kid is going to be special.
Pisses me off we are going to watch the Spurs and Mavs both with generational talents for years.
 
kjironman1 said:
Wait?
Did you look at the dunk? His head was at the rim. I don't see slow, I see smooth and effortless. That kid is going to be special.
Pisses me off we are going to watch the Spurs and Mavs both with generational talents for years.
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Don't be pissed: Wemby will retire early with heart problems and Flagg will underwhelm for a decade before winning his first title as a 7th man.
 
kjironman1 said:
I'm never going to wish bad health on anyone but underwhelming I'm on board with!
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I'm not wishing anything, I'm predicting. Wemby is still growing and that's a bad sign for his circulatory system. San Antonio will have to be careful and honest with both him and themselves.

As for Flagg, those moves were decent, but pedestrian in the wider NBA. I think he's going to be in for a shock, and I don't know if a "guaranteed #1 pick" has the chip on his shoulder to improve that much.
 
Everything Beagle said:
I'm not wishing anything, I'm predicting. Wemby is still growing and that's a bad sign for his circulatory system. San Antonio will have to be careful and honest with both him and themselves.

As for Flagg, those moves were decent, but pedestrian in the wider NBA. I think he's going to be in for a shock, and I don't know if a "guaranteed #1 pick" has the chip on his shoulder to improve that much.
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I'm not sure about Flagg. He was really good in his one year at Duke, and played really well in March Madness. Against MM competition he averaged 21pts-8reb-5ast while shooting 50% on three's. That's a pretty impressive resume. But I'd imagine there have been other players who stood out in the tournament who never sniffed a slot in an NBA rotation. I think Flagg's floor is solid rotation; ceiling is all-NBA.

as for Wemby, if indeed he is still growing at nearly 22 when he was 7'3 at 19, that's an ominous sign. He's already missed half a season because of DVT and a blood clot. DVT is a very serious condition and it can be chronic in very tall people

upload_2025-10-12_9-44-59.png

sure seems to be describing the life of an NBA player
 

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julius said:
Not saying he's not impressive, but that doesn't look super fast.

2 pre-season games don't mean much, and I'm sure if he was a Blazer I'd be fine with that production, but it seems kind of average.

Granted, like I said, it's just 2 pre-season games.
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Bro, I watched all his college games….. what caught my eye and impressed me the most was his vision. On both ends. You can tell his IQ is off the charts.
 
julius said:
Not saying he's not impressive, but that doesn't look super fast.

2 pre-season games don't mean much, and I'm sure if he was a Blazer I'd be fine with that production, but it seems kind of average.

Granted, like I said, it's just 2 pre-season games.
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Yeah, his athleticism doesn't exactly leap out at you. I think best case scenario for him is "scrawnier but bouncier Kevin Love"
 
andalusian said:
Can someone explain to me how the west got so much better than last year?

Notable players that moved to the western conference from the eastern conference:

Jrue Holiday (does not matter for this discussion)
Valančiūnas
Jordan Poole (Oh no?)
Cam Johnson,
Al horford
Brook Lopez

Notable players that moved to the eastern conference from the western conference:

Desmond Bane
Anfernee Simons
Kelly Olynyk
CJ McCollum
Michael Porter Jr.
Norman Powell

--

So overall, based on inter-conference movement, I do not think the Western conference got better compared to last year.

---

Now, there is a lot of intra-conference movement within the western conference, KD from PHX to HOU for example, but is that going to really change the overall picture of the conference? I guess that in some rare cases that was a win-win move, but just as likely you will see lose-lose moves, so overall, not really sure about that.


There are some teams that got better because of health or off-season regiment (LAL, likely, with Luka taking the criticism about his body to heart, SAS with Wemby coming back from injury).

So, there is clearly a chance that some teams that had a bad year last year because of health / conditioning will be better this year, but on average, you can expect the opposite too, all it takes is one injury to Jokic or SGA or Edwards (not that I wish this on anyone, just pointing it out) and a team that was great last year is less good this year.

So, overall, this idea that the western conference got so much better is just not reasonable to me. Please show me where you think I am missing something obvious.
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East lost Tatum, Haliburton, and Lillard. There’s the difference. Also Zion is healthy.
 
andalusian said:
Here are the head to head records for portland against western conference rivals last year:

Team Record (Wins-Losses)
Dallas Mavericks 1-3
Denver Nuggets 1-3
Golden State Warriors 1-3
Houston Rockets 1-3
LA Clippers 1-3
Los Angeles Lakers 2-2
Memphis Grizzlies 1-3
Minnesota Timberwolves 2-2
New Orleans Pelicans 2-2
Oklahoma City Thunder 1-3
Phoenix Suns 2-2
Sacramento Kings 1-3
San Antonio Spurs 1-3
Utah Jazz 1-3

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Let's say LAL, Rockets, GSW, Dallas and the Mavericks got so much better, that gives Portland, at worst, 6 wins if they lose all the games that they won last year (and there is no way in hell that happens, imho, we have just seen that when Portland plays it's rotation players it can compete with GSW, so you can't tell me they will not be able to steal at least a game from these teams). On the other hand, Portland lost 3 games to Utah last year, 2 games to Phoenix, 2 games to NOP, 3 to the Grizzlies, 3 to the Clippers.

I am sorry, I just don't see how the western conference got so much stronger over the summer. It did not, in aggregate. It might have got more top-heavy, because you now have 3-4 teams that can challenge OKC where there was none last year, but Memphis is probably not as good, Phoenix is a big question mark, are the Kings any better? Utah really wants to tank and the Blazers are not going to lose as many games to it as they did last year. Is Minnesota really better?

Now, while GSW has proven to be very good when their big 3 were good, they fell apart when Steph went down and Jimmy played hurt. They are older now, how likely are they to stay healthy for 82 games? How likely is it that the Thunder will not relax some now that the won it all, not an unusual occurrence for new championship teams (*).

So, I am still not seeing how the West got tougher, honestly, maybe at the top, but overall? I do not see it.

(*)

LAL won .732 in their championship year vs .583 the year after
Bucks went from .639 to .622
GSW went from .646 to .537
Boston went from .780 to .744

The Nuggets were the only recent exception, going from .646 to .695

In other words, if the Blazers got better, they should, health permitting, have at least as good a record as the year before, or better.

The Blazers won only 19 games against western teams last year, finishing with a record of 19-33 - if you do not think they win 19 again at least this year, I don't know what to tell you. Even if they win, let's say 17 (which is a miserable .32 win%) and we all agree that they got better and supposedly the east got worst, surely they will win more than the 17-13 record against the east they had last year. In other words, there's a lot of nonsense about how the west got better (it didn't really overall, just moved around a bit) and the Blazers were so bad against the west last year, I can't see how they end up with less wins than they did last year, overall (health permitting)
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Pretty cool that we beat every team. I wonder how many other teams did that.
 
SheedSoNasty said:
He’s going to be good
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Yeah that release point is so high and seemingly effortless. His offensive game looks a lot like KD's. Really smooth athleticism.

Still crazy to me that he fell to the 5th pick, I like Dylan Harper but I had Bailey second in the draft with only Flagg ahead of him.
 
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