The Greatest NBA Player: 5 on 5 Clone Game

[_Lemmie]

Can LeBron be on a team twice? He alley-ooped to himself in a real world game, so I figure it's a fair question.

Just kidding. Seriously though, not to interrupt the clone games, but the Nets have Durant and Kyrie Irving now! Plus Deandre Jordan, one of the best offensive rebounders ever. Pending recovery time for KD, that's going to be fun to watch.

Look at the history of players post-achilles injury. It's ugly. Outside of Wilkens, the outcomes range from, "noticeably worse" to "catastrophically worse." The effect is obvious enough that you can see it in significantly worse FG% for most examples. Wait and see what Durant is like after not playing for 18 months coming off a devastating injury at the age of 32.

I'm looking at Durant himself as an individual case, not the average for the injury. The Nets are taking a risk but I think it will pay off. In any case, it will be an interesting couple of years watching the Nets, which only a couple of years ago was the joke team of the town here.

[_honorentheos]

I'm looking at Durant himself as an individual case, not the average for the injury. The Nets are taking a risk but I think it will pay off. In any case, it will be an interesting couple of years watching the Nets, which only a couple of years ago was the joke team of the town here.

Your comment in contrast to EA's made me think of how I often find myself more interested in the play in sports than the outcome, which means I can annoy friends who have money on a game or need a fantasy player to score or whatever. Even Tom Brady in the NFL, who I really don't care for as a person, is admittedly the focus of my attention and, most often, grudging admiration when I watch a game the Patriots are in. Nothing makes me happier than a nice inside block by an offensive lineman in football that makes a play, even if it means the team I'm ostensibly cheering for is the victim.

Same with basketball, soccer, hockey, MMA, whatever. I enjoy seeing people who are great do what they do well, and that sometimes means just being fun to watch even if the score or W/L column of their record doesn't always reflect the value I'm deriving from it.

That makes it hard to predict how a serious injury could influence that. If the only outcome is the player becomes a shadow of their former selves and is clearly a season or two away from being forced into retirement it's very hard to watch. If, OTOH, there is a sort of heroic if different aspect to how they come back and play even if it's not at the same elite level, then I think it is in a different category of inspirational elite achievement. Like Tiger's win this year after struggling to recover from all of his back injuries it makes a story more interesting. Or, like Grant Hill who recovered from terrible ankle injury and came here to the Suns to become a different kind of role player in the later 2000s. Or, thinking of another Suns player, Amar'e Stoudemire who also changed his game following injuries that in itself was a story that informed how one watched him play.

So I think I get what you are saying. I hope it works out for Durant. And for the Nets. Being a fan of a laughing stock team means one can get tired of saying, "Well, next year..."

[_Lemmie]

I'm looking at Durant himself as an individual case, not the average for the injury. The Nets are taking a risk but I think it will pay off. In any case, it will be an interesting couple of years watching the Nets, which only a couple of years ago was the joke team of the town here.

Your comment in contrast to EA's made me think of how I often find myself more interested in the play in sports than the outcome, which means I can annoy friends who have money on a game or need a fantasy player to score or whatever. Even Tom Brady in the NFL, who I really don't care for as a person, is admittedly the focus of my attention and, most often, grudging admiration when I watch a game the Patriots are in. Nothing makes me happier than a nice inside block by an offensive lineman in football that makes a play, even if it means the team I'm ostensibly cheering for is the victim.

Same with basketball, soccer, hockey, MMA, whatever. I enjoy seeing people who are great do what they do well, and that sometimes means just being fun to watch even if the score or W/L column of their record doesn't always reflect the value I'm deriving from it.

Excellent points. I agree completely.

That makes it hard to predict how a serious injury could influence that. If the only outcome is the player becomes a shadow of their former selves and is clearly a season or two away from being forced into retirement it's very hard to watch. If, OTOH, there is a sort of heroic if different aspect to how they come back and play even if it's not at the same elite level, then I think it is in a different category of inspirational elite achievement. Like Tiger's win this year after struggling to recover from all of his back injuries it makes a story more interesting. Or, like Grant Hill who recovered from terrible ankle injury and came here to the Suns to become a different kind of role player in the later 2000s. Or, thinking of another Suns player, Amar'e Stoudemire who also changed his game following injuries that in itself was a story that informed how one watched him play.

So I think I get what you are saying. I hope it works out for Durant. And for the Nets. Being a fan of a laughing stock team means one can get tired of saying, "Well, next year..."

I hope so too, although I will admit to being a fairweather fan of the Nets!

As for Durant, I am hopeful for the best physical outcome for him, for reasons similar to what you discussed above, but my opinion is also based on conversations with my basketball playing son. He personally doesn't like KD, and gives me all sorts of friendly grief because I do, but his assessment of KD's personality, response to obstacles, and sheer, individualized stubborn-ness is what leads me to believe KD will have a far better than average response to this injury and recovery time.

Well, that and the fact that it would be a crime against humanity if Durant's uncanny ability to shoot from virtually any vertical to horizontal body position were never to be experienced again!

[_EAllusion]

I think Net fans should be happy. KD being an injury recovery outlier is probably a more probable event than getting lucky in the draft.

It’s just that this type of injury tends to be bad. It absolutely wrecked Kobe Bryant, and he was a hard worker to the point that it might be a mental illness in another context.

The Bucks just signed Wes Matthews. He was an up and coming all star level 3 and D guy who was destroyed by the injury. Now hopefully he will have some left in the tank off the bench as an ok role player.

[_Lemmie]

Speaking of drafts, etc., there is a great thread on reddit NBA about nicknames for the Irving and Durant duo at the Nets.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/c ... ken_woken/

My favorite:

"Thinky and the Pain"

" 'What are we going to do tonight, Kyrie?'

'The same thing we do every night, Kevin. Try to take over the (flat) world!' "

[_Bret Ripley]

Go home, Ajax.

Or go big: Colonel Ajax's Traveling Wonder Bread All Star Clones! It's 12 Bill Waltons, but there's a decent chance that at any given time at least 5 of them may be ambulatory.

The financial backers of Colonel Ajax's Traveling Wonder Bread All Stars are naturally concerned about the Bills Walton health, and are therefore proud to support Bernie Sanders in 2020: someone's got to pay for that medical entourage and they'd rather it was someone else.

[_MeDotOrg]

So I think I get what you are saying. I hope it works out for Durant. And for the Nets. Being a fan of a laughing stock team means one can get tired of saying, "Well, next year..."

Before the Warriors had their recent run, they were bottom-dwellers for nearly 4 decades. I don't think current management and coach will let that happen, but when a superstar goes down in a free-agent era, it send weird ripples through the league. I suppose the kindest thing you could say for the Warriors is that they have no long-term big money tied up in players recovering from devastating injuries.

Brooklyn has definitely overpaid for players in the past. The Kyrie-KD chemistry should be interesting. Kyrie is sort of the philosopher-king of the Kanye West/Ted Nugent wing of the NBA.

[_EAllusion]

Before the Warriors had their recent run, they were bottom-dwellers for nearly 4 decades. I don't think current management and coach will let that happen, but when a superstar goes down in a free-agent era, it send weird ripples through the league. I suppose the kindest thing you could say for the Warriors is that they have no long-term big money tied up in players recovering from devastating injuries

They just gave Klay a max deal. Acl is better than an Achilles, but it’s not a guaranteed full recovery either.

[_MeDotOrg]

Before the Warriors had their recent run, they were bottom-dwellers for nearly 4 decades. I don't think current management and coach will let that happen, but when a superstar goes down in a free-agent era, it send weird ripples through the league. I suppose the kindest thing you could say for the Warriors is that they have no long-term big money tied up in players recovering from devastating injuries

They just gave Klay a max deal. Acl is better than an Achilles, but it’s not a guaranteed full recovery either.

Years ago I was riding a bicycle while wearing toe clips, crossed a trolley track, caught a wheel and went down. I tore the ACL right off the bone (actually had to rebuild the top of my knee with a hip bone graft) and had it re-attached with a synthetic material called Maxxon. I still have screws in my leg.

So yeah, ACL injuries can be monstrous, especially if you don't have the time to give to rehab. I'd be curious but I bet if you looked at ACL recovery rates for pro athletes, I bet the rate has probably gone up in the last 20 years. I think they are a lot better at defining recovery strategies for each athlete.

But you were right to point that out, the Warriors are not entirely free of injury clouds. But while I think people are slowly getting better at recovering from ACL, Achilles recovery has a larger element of chance. If KD bounces back all the way, he's a better player than Thompson, but I like Klay's chances of recovery better than KD's.

I could never own an NBA team. Having to make those calculations would drive me crazy.

[_EAllusion]

ACL recovery has improved a ton in the past 20 years. Many players seem to fully recover. Not all do. I'd give Klay a max deal too. I just was cautioning against the idea that the Warriors haven't given major deals to players with significant injuries. They just did that.

You always worry about the day that Curry's ankles explode on the court too.

They just got Willie Cauley-Stein for almost the minimum. He probably is going to be close to what Andrew Bogut was before his final decline in their system. That's a very nice get for the price they paid. They're quietly rebuilding their pre-Durant juggernaught. They just need someone to fill the Harrison Barnes role. Not an easy ask given their constraints, but they're close.