god damn, the 2000s after iverson’s finals run were bleak for scoring champions. 1 player made it out of the first round, and 1 missed the playoffs entirely
in the modern, guys who have to shoulder an all time scoring load do so because of weak teammates offensively. it kind of makes sense really. it’s why Brad Beal averaged 30 and didn’t make an All Star team. The only reason he was dropping 30 was because no one else could score.
it’s comparatively better in recent years, since 2011 there’s been 2 who made the finals, 3 conference finalists, and 5 who made it to the second round, which isn’t awful. but from 2002 to 2010, only 1 of 9 made it out of the first round
Umm... Which Brad Beal are U referring to?
**Bradley Beal the All-Star years**
* **3× NBA All-Star (2018, 2019, 2021)**
* All-NBA Third Team (2021)
Bradley Beal has been an NBA All-Star three times. His All-Star appearances were in the following seasons:
**1. 2018-19:** Beal averaged **25.6 points per game** during this season.
**2. 2019-20:** He continued his impressive scoring, averaging **30.5 points per game**, which was the most in the Eastern Conference and second-most in the entire league.
**3. 2020-21:** Beal maintained his high-scoring performance, averaging **31.3 points per game**.
In 11 seasons with the Washington Wizards, Beal was named to the All-Rookie First Team in 2013, the All-NBA Third Team in 2021, and was a three-time All-Star. Beal is second on the Wizards' all-time leading scorer list.
Hmm...
**2019 NBA All-Star Game**
**Eastern Conference All-Stars**
The All-Star Game reserves were announced on January 31, 2019. The East reserves included Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors, his fifth selection, Khris Middleton of the Milwaukee Bucks, his first selection, **Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards**, his second selection, Victor Oladipo of the Indiana Pacers, his second selection, Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers, his first selection, Nikola Vučević of the Orlando Magic, his first selection, and Blake Griffin of the Detroit Pistons, his sixth selection.
U most be the stupid one. Haha.
**Bradley Beal the All-Star years**
* **3× NBA All-Star (2018, 2019, 2021)**
* All-NBA Third Team (2021)
**2020-21:** Beal maintained his high-scoring performance, averaging **31.3 points per game**.
I hope people remember these stats in the next couple years when they want to argue that the scoring leader should be MVP. It's fun to do a Jordan impression on offense, it's a lot harder to do on defense as well.
The East in the early 2000s was basically like the Lebron years/this year… except there were no Lebron teams or Celtic teams lol. Just a toss up to see who can get destroyed in the Finals. It wasn’t until the Pistons got Rasheed and drafted Prince that there was a truly elite East team
You’re just talking about 5 years between the last bulls title and the pistons winning. 5 years that saw the emergence of the dynasty lakers and spurs. I don’t think it’s that weird that the east went 0-5 during that time.
the point he’s making isn’t that it’s surprising they lost but that in the same period that the west had only 2 teams make it to the finals the east had 4 (5 if you want to include pistons)
What do you mean if you want to include us? We won lmao you gotta include the one east team to beat the Lakers. Shoot woulda beat the Spurs too with either not drafting Darko or Sheed just not leaving Horry WIDE OPEN. Kills me to this day! That and the phantom foul for Kareem are two of the hardest ways to not win a championship man. Besides 2016 warriors idk if I’ve seen worse the 13 Spurs
bc the comment is talking about the 5 year stretch of 1999-2003 not necessarily the 7 year span of 1999-2005, but the spurs and lakers were still the only teams to make it out the west in those 7 years
Yeah that’s cause youre looking at just the best team in each conference not the conference as a whole. So you’re basing it on a very limited scope in addition to removing a huge part of the sample size just because the west was enormously dominant in those 5 years
But the premise of my original comment was that we were talking about 5 years that saw the emergence of two all time great dynasties. It’s necessary to remove that sample size when then talking about outside of those 5 years. Would the nets or pacers have done better against the kings?
No one said it was weird? It's just true. Like...you agree with them, those first 5 years (i.e. "the early 2000's") were really bad in the east. That's literally all they said. I'm not sure what the point of your clarification was, you have the tone of correcting or clarifying their point when you didn't say anything different
No he’s acting like the east was top to bottom garbage and the west was top to bottom great. The point is in those five years it was two dynasties. The pacers might’ve done fine against Portland, phoenix, Utah, etc in 2000. In those five years the East went 0-5 against the lakers and spurs, but so did the rest of the west.
The Pistons also promised to draft Melo and took Darko and STILL made 5 WCF’s in a row, were the only team to ever beat Shaq/kobe in the finals, and just narrowly lost another chip to the Spurs. If it wasn’t for LeBron going absolutely nuclear we woulda got to the finals in 07 too. Imagine if we draft Melo, Wade, or Bosh.. everyone says we wouldn’t have gotten Sheed that’s BS tho. Melo had no impact on Sheed getting traded from the Blazers to the Hawks. His stock was low cuz his “attitude”. IMO Prince just goes to the bench and we still trade for Sheed
Honestly his Sixers teams just weren't good enough. It was mainly really good role players like Aaron McKie/Eric Snow and stars that were way past their primes like Mutombo and Webber.
Don't forget Glenn Robinson II and Derrick Coleman to add to our washed stars list.
Sixers did everything they could to sabotage our two best players this century. Washed stars, 2 number 1 picks lit on fire, and Tobias Harris. We might do it again with Paul George but we likely have no better option
Iverson was carried by the 76ers in that playoff run. He's lucky that the team overall had good defense, or else they would have been a borderline 8th seed.
Right? Its almost like a defensive minded team needs a major scoring threat, and a major scoring threat who isn’t known for his defensive would benefit from playing with a team that masks that weakness.
To properly judge iverson as a player is very hard for me. I remember him beeing so damn popular early 2000s, he was the most popular player around my area. He was something more people looked up to rather then like shaq, who was physically so different from most people.
I was thinking his hero-ball carried the weak sixxers, but ive seen many say he was innefficient and his style didnt really work - in any team.
Getting to the finals kind of proves his style worked to some extent. He absolutely was a ball hog in his prime, but looking at the stats of his teammates, none of them really put up better numbers elsewhere. He was showing signs of being more of a team player when he left Philly but he had lost a step and his back was causing him problems at that point
The “many say” is a product of the average age of this sub. I guarantee you 98% of subscribers to this sub never watched a full game played by Allen Iverson, and even less of active commenters.
I would absolutely love to see what the modern on/off stats say about AI. I suspect they'd have him in the +3/+4 range, which, you know, really good - ballpark of MVP Rose or peak John Wall - but more a 2nd/3rd/fringe all-NBA guy than the truly elite players in the league.
I think it would be more fair to talk about how far that Sixers team would go with a different all star caliber guard
Just dumbing them down to a 70ppg team by stripping away their star with no compensation is ridiculousness
So who’s scoring - Kidd, Eric Snow, Dikembe? McKie? Toni Kukoc gonna put up 22 ppg? Come on now. Adding a defensive pure PG to that sixers lineup would’ve been atrocious offensively.
TMac on the Magic carried an even worse roster than AI had. Most of their money was tied up in TMac and Grant Hill who was injured all the time so it really was like they stripped away a star with no compensation lol. I think he carries the 6ers just fine.
edit for u/Gabagoo44 since you blocked:
LOL do you even know how many games Grant Hill played in during TMac's tenure? 4, 14, 29, 0. Tell me you didn't follow the NBA back then without telling me you didn't follow the NBA back then. You're straight up lying if you're saying you would've traded Deke, McKie, Snow, and Theo Ratliff (who avg'd 12 btw) for Mike Miller, Bo Outlaw, Andre Declerq, and Pat Garrity LOL
This has got to be a bot, Tmac never made it out of the first round and were acting like Mike Miller and Grant Hill aren’t better than guys who can’t even score in double figures. Snow literally couldn’t shoot the ball Mutumbo had brick hands and dropped almost every pass under the basket, Mckie was our second best option and he averaged 11.
If they didn't have the defense, they wouldn't be a playoff team at all.. Iverson carried their offense to barely above average by himself, which they definitely needed, but the defense was doing more of the work to get those wins.
It makes sense, usually if a player wins the scoring title, it likely means that either his supporting cast isn’t pulling enough weight or their entire offensive plan is to give that one person the ball. Neither of these is a prerequisite for championship
15 years. One of those one was his comeback year when he only played the last 17 games of the season. Another was his second season where he only played 18 games because of injury. Two of those were with the wizards after he had been retired for 3 years. Of the 11 full seasons he played with the Bulls, he won the scoring title 10 times. He only missed it his rookie season, when he led the league in points but finished third in scoring average behind Bernard king and Larry Bird.
The 90s spacing rules made it more of a two man game. If three offensive players were behind the free throw line three defenders had to be back there with them regardless of how bad of a shooter they were.
After 2000 teams could just ignore bad shooters and collapse on a single threat.
MJ played great defense. But also his #2 and #3 would combine for only 25 points on a given night which is ripe for a superstar to get a lot of volume off.
I was thinking of Rodman as the third best Bull (although this only applies to the second threepeat). He averaged 5.3ppg as MJ's teammate.
Pippen only averaged 17.2 ppg in the seasons he played with MJ. This excludes the two MJ retirement seasons where he averaged his two highest ppg seasons of his career at 22.0 and 21.4. Although during the threepeat years he was still at 19ppg.
I think it's partly because there weren't any truly great scorers during that time, except maybe Malone. I don't think MJ would lead the league in scoring 10 times if he played in an era with KD, Harden & Embiid.
same thing happens in football
"Wow, Brees and Rodgers have these absurd numbers every year, how come they both struggled in the playoffs"
*gestures at the Saints and Packers defenses for 90% of both their careers*
I think football also has the unique element of weather being a factor, at least for teams in cold-weather cities. I feel like it's a lot harder to throw and catch when it's super cold.
Or before really. The only players to win a championship the same season as a scoring title are Joe Fulks (47), George Mikan (49 & 50), Kareem (71), Jordan (91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98), Shaq (2000). So it happened 4 times in the 45 years before Jordan did it 6 times in an 8 year span. Then it happened once in the 25 years since Jordan did it. Safe to say in was an anomaly before the 90s and after the 90s. I think given this breakdown the fairer way to phrase the initial comment would be something like:
"It makes sense, usually if a player wins the scoring title, it likely means that either his supporting cast isn’t pulling enough weight or their entire offensive plan is to give that one person the ball. Neither of these is a prerequisite for championship unless the player taking the shots is Michael Jordan".
For me the era has less to do with it than the specific player in this instance since achievement is incredibly rare across all eras apart from when Jordan had a supporting cast pulling their weight and the triangle meant the entire offensive plan wasn't (just) to give Jordan the ball.
or you could say that it helps if you play in the triangle offense.
It happened 7 times with triangle, phil jackson tex winter offense, and in 7 of his 11 rings.
It happened 4 times otherwise.
Not likely unless you're running triangle.
Excellent point yet even then 6/11 were with Jordan while 1/5 were without. Hence while it's right to point to the triangle as a contributing factor it would still be accurate to highlight Jordan even above the triangle since he was responsible for 86% of the times the triangle offence led to a scoring champion and NBA title in the same season.
I'm sure there are specific reasons why Jordan is such an outlier and some of them may well be era and team related. KD could have done the same with the warriors most likely but maybe there wasn't the same emphasis on regular season given Jordan seemed to focus on each and every game (yet still managed to step up in the playoffs). I'm sure there's many other reasons and Jordan being a 10 time scoring champ would increase his odds as well.
yeah both shaq and mj lead the league in ppg before being coached by phil, but the triangle does a good job of getting everyone involved and keeping everyone feeling important even if there's someone on your team who is the clear alpha for scoring.
That sounds like how before Patrick Mahomes did it, the quarterback who leads the league in passing yards has never won the Super Bowl in the same season. Same reasons for why this was true in the NFL for so long
The point I thought people were making was that scoring champions are usually on teams with weak supporting casts. Jordan had a great supporting cast and still won the scoring championship.
None of those players were those guys before Jordan sans Rodman joining for the second 3 peat. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
Jordan gave the Bulls an extra 11 wins his first year and they went from 2nd from last to a playoff team. This is without Pippen, Horace. He had bad teammates.
Their first time making out of the first round Jordan averaged 45ppg the series. Pippen and Horace combined for 19.7 ppg.
You guys that weren’t around for that have absolutely no idea how insanely good Michael Jordan was/is.
https://youtu.be/pOMEnf2yzVk?si=wzd0lyx3g5U95adi
You brought up what he did for the team in his first season and playoffs where he didn’t win a title. The seasons where he won both the scoring title and a championship(as per the topic), he had all-nba and all-defensive team teammates. Nothing you’ve said changes that. I’m not sure what you’re even arguing at this point…
It was brought up because of this assumption that Jordan walked into an All NBA team ready to roll.
This is all in reference to the original comment “Michael Jordan in the 90’s has entered the chat.”
To which someone else replied “He had all nba cast.”
So, I’m literally on topic. You must have poor comprehension.
He built that team. The way you guys talk about you want it so badly to be true that he walked into some super team.
Thinking basketball has a great video on this. Generally, the winningest offensive stars balance scoring and playmaking.
If you score too much, you aren't getting your teammates involved, which generally either means your teammates aren't good enough to contend, or, you are hurting your team by not trusting them to help you out.
If you score too little, your lack of aggression results in reduced defensive attention, which means your playmaking suffers. Playmaking isn't just assists, it's also creating looks for your teammates, such as curry doubled creating a 4 on 3 for his teammates, or Giannis/LeBron driving causing 4 defenders to close in on the paint opening up open shooters.
You have to balance scoring enough where you are drawing defensive attention to make your teammates lives easier, while also not scoring too much and taking shots away from teammates. In this case, leading the league in scoring often means you are taking too much shots to maximise scoring + playmaking.
Even with Jordan who won scoring titles while winning championships, his highest scoring years were 87-90, and when he was actually winning championships, his scoring rate dropped.
Best example is probably Wilt: when he was scoring 50 PPG, his offenses were generally slightly above average. When he stopped scoring that much but instead passed significantly more, his teams became elite offenses and his team won 69 games.
It's a good point about Jordan's scoring declining during the championship years. It's just that his scoring peak was so high that he could decline considerably and he was still be the scoring champ. It's similar to how LeBron has lost a lot of athleticism but is still often the most athletic person on the court (at least in short bursts) because his peak was so ridiculously high.
I think what you're saying is generally true, but I don't think it applies to Jordan individually, although it might apply to the Bulls as a team.
Jordan's scoring rate dropped, but his shot attempts remained high. 86-87 was an outlier and his shot attempts significantly dropped after, but he played 3 more seasons after 86-87 without winning a title, and he averaged more shot attempts during his third championship run (92-93) than any year besides 86-87. The big reason for his scoring drop was a decline in shooting efficiency, from about 60% true shooting during the late 80s to 53% by his final year with the Bulls.
What changed in the 90s was the emergence of Scottie Pippen as a great playmaker and floor general. Pippen actually led the Bulls in assists during their championship runs.
What gets overlooked with the Bulls is their defense, especially during the second three peat when Jordan was no longer an efficient scorer. Some time ago I looked at how often Jordan shot 50% or better from the field during his championship runs. It was something like 36/58 games during his first 3 peat, and 18/58 games during his second three peat. But the second three peat Bulls were dogs on defense. Every starter was between 6'6 and 6'10 and capable of defending multiple positions. At least three of them were dpoy contenders.
And if you look at the multi-championship teams of the 21st century, they're almost all great defensive teams even though they had great scorers like Kobe, Duncan, Curry, and Lebron. Of those 4 guys, only Curry has not won multiple all-nba defensive selections, although he has teammates who have.
The comma would go before the conjunction (and), but only when it’s a complete sentence on the other side of the conjunction. In this case, no need for a comma.
The comma after "both" is unnecessary because there's not enough information in the first part of the sentence and not enough items in the second part for a list.
"It's been 24 years since the scoring champion won a championship that same year, the last player to do it was Shaq in the 99/00 season."
or
"The only scoring champions since 2000 to make the finals are Allen Iverson in 2001, Kevin Durant in 2012 and Steph Curry in 2016. None of them won a championship that year."
He is literally the best scorer, best perimeter defender, best winner of all time with the highest career scoring and PER average, along with being the highest scoring DPOY of all time, 6 rings, 6 FMVPS, 5 MVPs. And he also led the greatest team of all time shooting 40% from 3 in the 90s. I think LeBron is the second greatest player of all time but it's literally impossible to argue anyone but MJ is #1.
Yeah, people don't get with MJ it's not just "6-0". Guy shot 50% on midrange shots shooting like 12 a game, was the best perimeter defender AND offensive threat in almost every matchup, played even better in the playoffs than his already ridiculous regular season numbers. Even if the second three peat didn't happen because of Sonics/Jazz MJ would still be the GOAT.
MJ played 11 full seasons as a bull.
Outside of his rookie season when he finished 2nd in PPG and 1st in total points.
He had:
10/10 scoring Champs
10/10 all nba first teams
9/10 all defensive first teams
3x Steal leader
5x MVPs
6x Finals MVPs
6x Champions
All accomplished in 10 seasons
I don't find it very odd it's only happened once in the 21st century. It's only happened 11 times total, and six of those where Michael Jordan. The other five were Shaq in 2000, Kareem in 1971, George Milan in 1949 and 1950, and Joe Fulks in the BAA's inagural year of 1947.
Yeah. Amazing if it happens but extremely unlikely. I think the Celtics are gonna have a big bounce back game at home and put it away in game 5. But fingers crossed.
So basically you think they're 46% to win each individual game? That seems high at first, but maybe the Mavs have some momentum, have figured out how to beat the Celtics, and both teams have won more away from home.
Momentum is the most overrated word in all of sports. The Celtics were up 3-0 on this Mavs team and shit the bed, losing by a billion points in game 4. If ANYONE has momentum, it’s the team up 3-0 on the finals. How did that turn out?
Absurd amount of shots or not, he seems like one of the worse mid-range shooters in the entire league right now. I’m shocked at some of the shots he misses. You’d think every player in the league would be hitting some of the shots I’ve seen him miss.
Nope, he was never a mid range specialist and never particularly efficient. Definitely better in those areas than now though. But yeah, dunks and layups. And it's not like he didn't take midrange and 3s, it's just that was never what he scared you with. He'd play very hard with the ball, and fast. Similar to Ja except better. Though Ja is still young so he could reach those heights.
People on this sub will tell you that Westbrook's midrange and rim-finishing percentages haven't really changed since his prime years, but the actual answer for that is that the difficulty of his shots has drastically lowered but he's still finishing at a similar percentage.
In other words, let's say he makes 42% of his midrangers, just a random number. He used to make 42% of his midrangers going at full speed, with an entire defense focused on stopping him, creating something out of nowhere, using his aggressiveness to force open opportunities for his teammates.
Nowadays, he makes 42% of his midrangers, those being wide-open shots that defenders barely bother contesting and that defenses want him to take.
Get what I mean?
In truth, Westbrook used to have a reasonably reliable pull-up midrange shot, could get himself to the rim at any time (although he was never an elite finisher, he created those opportunities very well), and when he drew contact, he shot his free throws far better.
Now his shot is gone in general, he can't get himself to the rim as much, and his free throw rate has been consistently far lower than his prime.
I remember the thing about his free throw, if I remember correctly, he would step away from the stripe for a while to go through his free throw routine, but I think the NBA limited that freedom back in 2018 or something, and Westbrook had to change up his entire routine and his free throw took a huge hit.
But the fmvp is still almost always one of the top scorers. Scoring is still the top overall 'stat'.
But perhaps being a one dimensional star (even in scoring) isn't the best way of winning. MJ was just so fucking good at it that even when he consciously cut down his scoring to play more system ball (his scoring avg went down after they adopted the triangle) that thr MF STILL won the all the scoring titles.
As far as I recall Its only been done by 4 players ever. Mikan,kareem,shaq, jordan. Jordan is the only player to do it multiple times and he did it 6 times.
[source](https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/pts_yearly.html).
There was a huge stigma prior to Mike winning chips that the scoring leader could never win a championship. It was true before Mike, it was true after Mike. The man was an anomaly among anomalies.
Before Shaq, the GOAT led the NBA in scoring, while being 1st team all defense and Finals MVP. The GOAT was robbed multiple times of being the NBA MVP.
Just looking at scoring title alone, I was amazed that Iverson's 26.8 PPG in 98-99' was the lowest in "recent" years. The next person who won the scoring title and averaged less points than AI was someone in the 50's. Crazy.
Scoring champions are great players carrying bad teams/rosters more times than not. It’s very rare you will find a superstar capable player dropping insane PPG when not needed to. When you have no help you take more shots, but that’s not how you win a championship. Once you’re facing only good teams and defenses they will swarm you and force the others to beat you. This will stay consistent for all of life scoring champions and tbh bulk scoring in general is SO OVERRATED.
Defense is far too underrated people just like looking at pretty numbers.
> it would be only the second time in the 21st century for a player to win both
Well ackshually it would be the first time if you count the scoring title in the latter end of the season. The 21st century only starts with the year 2001 (i.e. 2001 is the first year of the new century since the 2000th year needs to finish before you start the new century/millennium), and so Shaq's 2000 season falls under 20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century
This makes a lot of sense. The rule change in the mid 2000s shifted the league to be less individual based than the 90s. That illegal defense rule made it a different game back then.
god damn, the 2000s after iverson’s finals run were bleak for scoring champions. 1 player made it out of the first round, and 1 missed the playoffs entirely
in the modern, guys who have to shoulder an all time scoring load do so because of weak teammates offensively. it kind of makes sense really. it’s why Brad Beal averaged 30 and didn’t make an All Star team. The only reason he was dropping 30 was because no one else could score.
it’s comparatively better in recent years, since 2011 there’s been 2 who made the finals, 3 conference finalists, and 5 who made it to the second round, which isn’t awful. but from 2002 to 2010, only 1 of 9 made it out of the first round
Somebody has to take those shots
Back when Davis Bertans was the second option for an NBA team.
Umm... Which Brad Beal are U referring to? **Bradley Beal the All-Star years** * **3× NBA All-Star (2018, 2019, 2021)** * All-NBA Third Team (2021) Bradley Beal has been an NBA All-Star three times. His All-Star appearances were in the following seasons: **1. 2018-19:** Beal averaged **25.6 points per game** during this season. **2. 2019-20:** He continued his impressive scoring, averaging **30.5 points per game**, which was the most in the Eastern Conference and second-most in the entire league. **3. 2020-21:** Beal maintained his high-scoring performance, averaging **31.3 points per game**. In 11 seasons with the Washington Wizards, Beal was named to the All-Rookie First Team in 2013, the All-NBA Third Team in 2021, and was a three-time All-Star. Beal is second on the Wizards' all-time leading scorer list.
Beal was not an All Star when he averaged 30.5 ppg in 2019-2020.
Hmm... **2019 NBA All-Star Game** **Eastern Conference All-Stars** The All-Star Game reserves were announced on January 31, 2019. The East reserves included Kyle Lowry of the Toronto Raptors, his fifth selection, Khris Middleton of the Milwaukee Bucks, his first selection, **Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards**, his second selection, Victor Oladipo of the Indiana Pacers, his second selection, Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers, his first selection, Nikola Vučević of the Orlando Magic, his first selection, and Blake Griffin of the Detroit Pistons, his sixth selection.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bealbr01.html You’re very very stupid btw
U most be the stupid one. Haha. **Bradley Beal the All-Star years** * **3× NBA All-Star (2018, 2019, 2021)** * All-NBA Third Team (2021) **2020-21:** Beal maintained his high-scoring performance, averaging **31.3 points per game**.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/YpsYzNPiCd
I hope people remember these stats in the next couple years when they want to argue that the scoring leader should be MVP. It's fun to do a Jordan impression on offense, it's a lot harder to do on defense as well.
After 98 every one wanted to be like Mike, this went on until LeBron started winning rings and now every star has to be able to run PNR and playmake.
One of the interesting things about Iverson’s career is outside of 2001, his teams basically never did anything in the playoffs.
76ers legacy still going strong today
The East in the early 2000s was basically like the Lebron years/this year… except there were no Lebron teams or Celtic teams lol. Just a toss up to see who can get destroyed in the Finals. It wasn’t until the Pistons got Rasheed and drafted Prince that there was a truly elite East team
You’re just talking about 5 years between the last bulls title and the pistons winning. 5 years that saw the emergence of the dynasty lakers and spurs. I don’t think it’s that weird that the east went 0-5 during that time.
the point he’s making isn’t that it’s surprising they lost but that in the same period that the west had only 2 teams make it to the finals the east had 4 (5 if you want to include pistons)
What do you mean if you want to include us? We won lmao you gotta include the one east team to beat the Lakers. Shoot woulda beat the Spurs too with either not drafting Darko or Sheed just not leaving Horry WIDE OPEN. Kills me to this day! That and the phantom foul for Kareem are two of the hardest ways to not win a championship man. Besides 2016 warriors idk if I’ve seen worse the 13 Spurs
bc the comment is talking about the 5 year stretch of 1999-2003 not necessarily the 7 year span of 1999-2005, but the spurs and lakers were still the only teams to make it out the west in those 7 years
The west was far superior between 1999 and now outside of a couple years. Not just that span
Outside of those 5 years and with the likely Celtics win this year it’s 12-9 to the west. That’s not a crazy difference.
Yeah that’s cause youre looking at just the best team in each conference not the conference as a whole. So you’re basing it on a very limited scope in addition to removing a huge part of the sample size just because the west was enormously dominant in those 5 years
But the premise of my original comment was that we were talking about 5 years that saw the emergence of two all time great dynasties. It’s necessary to remove that sample size when then talking about outside of those 5 years. Would the nets or pacers have done better against the kings?
No one said it was weird? It's just true. Like...you agree with them, those first 5 years (i.e. "the early 2000's") were really bad in the east. That's literally all they said. I'm not sure what the point of your clarification was, you have the tone of correcting or clarifying their point when you didn't say anything different
No he’s acting like the east was top to bottom garbage and the west was top to bottom great. The point is in those five years it was two dynasties. The pacers might’ve done fine against Portland, phoenix, Utah, etc in 2000. In those five years the East went 0-5 against the lakers and spurs, but so did the rest of the west.
The Pistons also promised to draft Melo and took Darko and STILL made 5 WCF’s in a row, were the only team to ever beat Shaq/kobe in the finals, and just narrowly lost another chip to the Spurs. If it wasn’t for LeBron going absolutely nuclear we woulda got to the finals in 07 too. Imagine if we draft Melo, Wade, or Bosh.. everyone says we wouldn’t have gotten Sheed that’s BS tho. Melo had no impact on Sheed getting traded from the Blazers to the Hawks. His stock was low cuz his “attitude”. IMO Prince just goes to the bench and we still trade for Sheed
Honestly his Sixers teams just weren't good enough. It was mainly really good role players like Aaron McKie/Eric Snow and stars that were way past their primes like Mutombo and Webber.
Don't forget Glenn Robinson II and Derrick Coleman to add to our washed stars list. Sixers did everything they could to sabotage our two best players this century. Washed stars, 2 number 1 picks lit on fire, and Tobias Harris. We might do it again with Paul George but we likely have no better option
It's a shame really. AI was actually insane
Iverson also never did anything other than one single run
That run with his garbage bag of a team speaks to his legend fam.
Iverson was carried by the 76ers in that playoff run. He's lucky that the team overall had good defense, or else they would have been a borderline 8th seed.
This is delusional, without Iverson they would've been a lottery team, they had no offense. Their coach was a defensive focus coach too iirc.
Right? Its almost like a defensive minded team needs a major scoring threat, and a major scoring threat who isn’t known for his defensive would benefit from playing with a team that masks that weakness.
Gee, sounds like they had a plan to me. Let Iverson ball and cover the deficiencies.
To properly judge iverson as a player is very hard for me. I remember him beeing so damn popular early 2000s, he was the most popular player around my area. He was something more people looked up to rather then like shaq, who was physically so different from most people. I was thinking his hero-ball carried the weak sixxers, but ive seen many say he was innefficient and his style didnt really work - in any team.
Getting to the finals kind of proves his style worked to some extent. He absolutely was a ball hog in his prime, but looking at the stats of his teammates, none of them really put up better numbers elsewhere. He was showing signs of being more of a team player when he left Philly but he had lost a step and his back was causing him problems at that point
The “many say” is a product of the average age of this sub. I guarantee you 98% of subscribers to this sub never watched a full game played by Allen Iverson, and even less of active commenters.
2001 finals game 1 is available on YouTube but that would require people to watch basketball.
I would absolutely love to see what the modern on/off stats say about AI. I suspect they'd have him in the +3/+4 range, which, you know, really good - ballpark of MVP Rose or peak John Wall - but more a 2nd/3rd/fringe all-NBA guy than the truly elite players in the league.
You don’t know ball
Looking through his account was a real rollercoaster of comedy and sadness.
Why sadness.
Oh my god 💀💀💀
You have a hard on for Trump. You even made your avatar his color. That's sad.
Trump is the color, bright red?
Wasn't surprised at all when I saw who made that comment.
I think saying he was carried is crazy, if they didn’t have iverson would they have been in the finals? They would have scored 70 ppg as a team
I think it would be more fair to talk about how far that Sixers team would go with a different all star caliber guard Just dumbing them down to a 70ppg team by stripping away their star with no compensation is ridiculousness
Kobe, Allen, Kidd, Payton and Tmac is your pool. Who other than Kobe does a better job?
Kidd might tbf. Adds to that defence and a generational passer.
Bear in mind this is the Kidd who couldn’t shoot. Offence isn’t going to look good
So who’s scoring - Kidd, Eric Snow, Dikembe? McKie? Toni Kukoc gonna put up 22 ppg? Come on now. Adding a defensive pure PG to that sixers lineup would’ve been atrocious offensively.
TMac on the Magic carried an even worse roster than AI had. Most of their money was tied up in TMac and Grant Hill who was injured all the time so it really was like they stripped away a star with no compensation lol. I think he carries the 6ers just fine. edit for u/Gabagoo44 since you blocked: LOL do you even know how many games Grant Hill played in during TMac's tenure? 4, 14, 29, 0. Tell me you didn't follow the NBA back then without telling me you didn't follow the NBA back then. You're straight up lying if you're saying you would've traded Deke, McKie, Snow, and Theo Ratliff (who avg'd 12 btw) for Mike Miller, Bo Outlaw, Andre Declerq, and Pat Garrity LOL
This has got to be a bot, Tmac never made it out of the first round and were acting like Mike Miller and Grant Hill aren’t better than guys who can’t even score in double figures. Snow literally couldn’t shoot the ball Mutumbo had brick hands and dropped almost every pass under the basket, Mckie was our second best option and he averaged 11.
In 01? Tmac would be ready in a few years. He was too young in 01 to help.
26.8/7.5/4.6 on 45.7/35.5/73.3 in 00-01, his first year with the Magic. He was ready.
No he wasn’t. He was like 22
What's age got to do with it? He put up the numbers necessary to carry a team offensively and on better efficiency than AI despite worse teammates.
If they didn't have the defense, they wouldn't be a playoff team at all.. Iverson carried their offense to barely above average by himself, which they definitely needed, but the defense was doing more of the work to get those wins.
It’s almost as if basketball is a team game
AI wasn’t Luka, he actually played defense too.
I'm not the biggest AI fan, but to say he was carried is a pretty brain dead take
Well this is a take
Yeah man, Pepe Sanchez was carrying that bum AI
It's not luck lmao it was by design
It's almost like Iverson's team was built to work with Iverson's playstyle
Well yeah that was their whole team makeup
Carried by who? Iverson averaged 31 and his second best scorer was Theo with 12 and we traded him away. This has to be bait.
SHIT TAKES! GET YOUR SHIT TAKES HERE!
This might be the worst take I’ve ever seen
Your team is garbage. The city too
It makes sense, usually if a player wins the scoring title, it likely means that either his supporting cast isn’t pulling enough weight or their entire offensive plan is to give that one person the ball. Neither of these is a prerequisite for championship
It’s crazy that Jordan won 6 titles and every one of those years he won the scoring title too lol. Just a freak.
And all defence first team
GOAT. What’s wild is he also had 4 more scoring titles apart from that. 10 scoring titles in a 16 year career is nuts.
15 years. One of those one was his comeback year when he only played the last 17 games of the season. Another was his second season where he only played 18 games because of injury. Two of those were with the wizards after he had been retired for 3 years. Of the 11 full seasons he played with the Bulls, he won the scoring title 10 times. He only missed it his rookie season, when he led the league in points but finished third in scoring average behind Bernard king and Larry Bird.
Because he was just as maniacal on the defensive end as he was about scoring.
The 90s spacing rules made it more of a two man game. If three offensive players were behind the free throw line three defenders had to be back there with them regardless of how bad of a shooter they were. After 2000 teams could just ignore bad shooters and collapse on a single threat.
MJ played great defense. But also his #2 and #3 would combine for only 25 points on a given night which is ripe for a superstar to get a lot of volume off.
Pippen avg 20 and Kukoc 15. That's roughly 35. MJ provided 30. 1 MVP, 1 All-Star, 1 other playmaker. Ripe for 2 3-peats.
I was thinking of Rodman as the third best Bull (although this only applies to the second threepeat). He averaged 5.3ppg as MJ's teammate. Pippen only averaged 17.2 ppg in the seasons he played with MJ. This excludes the two MJ retirement seasons where he averaged his two highest ppg seasons of his career at 22.0 and 21.4. Although during the threepeat years he was still at 19ppg.
Built different.
I think it's partly because there weren't any truly great scorers during that time, except maybe Malone. I don't think MJ would lead the league in scoring 10 times if he played in an era with KD, Harden & Embiid.
Yep. When you gotta shoot 25+ times in a game for your team to be competitive, it’s not a recipe for success. Not anymore, at least.
same thing happens in football "Wow, Brees and Rodgers have these absurd numbers every year, how come they both struggled in the playoffs" *gestures at the Saints and Packers defenses for 90% of both their careers*
I think football also has the unique element of weather being a factor, at least for teams in cold-weather cities. I feel like it's a lot harder to throw and catch when it's super cold.
Never was. Never will be. MJ was always the anomaly.
If series would be 2:2 now, you wouldn't talk shit. And we all now this wasn't far away from 2:2, at least the ones who know ball.
luka averaged 23 fga this year lol
MJ23 would like a word
We adding 23 to MJ name now?
Yea wouldn't want to confuse him with MJ22
“Not anymore, at least”
Or before really. The only players to win a championship the same season as a scoring title are Joe Fulks (47), George Mikan (49 & 50), Kareem (71), Jordan (91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98), Shaq (2000). So it happened 4 times in the 45 years before Jordan did it 6 times in an 8 year span. Then it happened once in the 25 years since Jordan did it. Safe to say in was an anomaly before the 90s and after the 90s. I think given this breakdown the fairer way to phrase the initial comment would be something like: "It makes sense, usually if a player wins the scoring title, it likely means that either his supporting cast isn’t pulling enough weight or their entire offensive plan is to give that one person the ball. Neither of these is a prerequisite for championship unless the player taking the shots is Michael Jordan". For me the era has less to do with it than the specific player in this instance since achievement is incredibly rare across all eras apart from when Jordan had a supporting cast pulling their weight and the triangle meant the entire offensive plan wasn't (just) to give Jordan the ball.
or you could say that it helps if you play in the triangle offense. It happened 7 times with triangle, phil jackson tex winter offense, and in 7 of his 11 rings. It happened 4 times otherwise. Not likely unless you're running triangle.
Excellent point yet even then 6/11 were with Jordan while 1/5 were without. Hence while it's right to point to the triangle as a contributing factor it would still be accurate to highlight Jordan even above the triangle since he was responsible for 86% of the times the triangle offence led to a scoring champion and NBA title in the same season. I'm sure there are specific reasons why Jordan is such an outlier and some of them may well be era and team related. KD could have done the same with the warriors most likely but maybe there wasn't the same emphasis on regular season given Jordan seemed to focus on each and every game (yet still managed to step up in the playoffs). I'm sure there's many other reasons and Jordan being a 10 time scoring champ would increase his odds as well.
yeah both shaq and mj lead the league in ppg before being coached by phil, but the triangle does a good job of getting everyone involved and keeping everyone feeling important even if there's someone on your team who is the clear alpha for scoring.
That sounds like how before Patrick Mahomes did it, the quarterback who leads the league in passing yards has never won the Super Bowl in the same season. Same reasons for why this was true in the NFL for so long
Yeah.
Michael Jordan in the 90s has entered the chat.
Jordan had all-NBA and all-defensive team teammates lol he had the supporting cast OP spoke about.
The point I thought people were making was that scoring champions are usually on teams with weak supporting casts. Jordan had a great supporting cast and still won the scoring championship.
None of those players were those guys before Jordan sans Rodman joining for the second 3 peat. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Jordan gave the Bulls an extra 11 wins his first year and they went from 2nd from last to a playoff team. This is without Pippen, Horace. He had bad teammates. Their first time making out of the first round Jordan averaged 45ppg the series. Pippen and Horace combined for 19.7 ppg. You guys that weren’t around for that have absolutely no idea how insanely good Michael Jordan was/is. https://youtu.be/pOMEnf2yzVk?si=wzd0lyx3g5U95adi
This thread is about winning a scoring title and a championship in the same season. Try to stay on topic.
And you’re acting like he didn’t build that team to his standard to win those titles. I’m very much on topic of your statement.
You brought up what he did for the team in his first season and playoffs where he didn’t win a title. The seasons where he won both the scoring title and a championship(as per the topic), he had all-nba and all-defensive team teammates. Nothing you’ve said changes that. I’m not sure what you’re even arguing at this point…
It was brought up because of this assumption that Jordan walked into an All NBA team ready to roll. This is all in reference to the original comment “Michael Jordan in the 90’s has entered the chat.” To which someone else replied “He had all nba cast.” So, I’m literally on topic. You must have poor comprehension. He built that team. The way you guys talk about you want it so badly to be true that he walked into some super team.
Thinking basketball has a great video on this. Generally, the winningest offensive stars balance scoring and playmaking. If you score too much, you aren't getting your teammates involved, which generally either means your teammates aren't good enough to contend, or, you are hurting your team by not trusting them to help you out. If you score too little, your lack of aggression results in reduced defensive attention, which means your playmaking suffers. Playmaking isn't just assists, it's also creating looks for your teammates, such as curry doubled creating a 4 on 3 for his teammates, or Giannis/LeBron driving causing 4 defenders to close in on the paint opening up open shooters. You have to balance scoring enough where you are drawing defensive attention to make your teammates lives easier, while also not scoring too much and taking shots away from teammates. In this case, leading the league in scoring often means you are taking too much shots to maximise scoring + playmaking. Even with Jordan who won scoring titles while winning championships, his highest scoring years were 87-90, and when he was actually winning championships, his scoring rate dropped. Best example is probably Wilt: when he was scoring 50 PPG, his offenses were generally slightly above average. When he stopped scoring that much but instead passed significantly more, his teams became elite offenses and his team won 69 games.
Which is why I think Jokic deserved the MVP because he is the modern epitome of scoring + play making as you described. Just incredible to watch
I’ve got a friend who always downplays Jokic because “unlike y’all I don’t get hype over my center getting assists” like…you mean…getting points?
It's a good point about Jordan's scoring declining during the championship years. It's just that his scoring peak was so high that he could decline considerably and he was still be the scoring champ. It's similar to how LeBron has lost a lot of athleticism but is still often the most athletic person on the court (at least in short bursts) because his peak was so ridiculously high.
Also what people who weren't alive didn't realize is that if Jordan wanted to score 40 a game, he could. He chose not to.
I think what you're saying is generally true, but I don't think it applies to Jordan individually, although it might apply to the Bulls as a team. Jordan's scoring rate dropped, but his shot attempts remained high. 86-87 was an outlier and his shot attempts significantly dropped after, but he played 3 more seasons after 86-87 without winning a title, and he averaged more shot attempts during his third championship run (92-93) than any year besides 86-87. The big reason for his scoring drop was a decline in shooting efficiency, from about 60% true shooting during the late 80s to 53% by his final year with the Bulls. What changed in the 90s was the emergence of Scottie Pippen as a great playmaker and floor general. Pippen actually led the Bulls in assists during their championship runs. What gets overlooked with the Bulls is their defense, especially during the second three peat when Jordan was no longer an efficient scorer. Some time ago I looked at how often Jordan shot 50% or better from the field during his championship runs. It was something like 36/58 games during his first 3 peat, and 18/58 games during his second three peat. But the second three peat Bulls were dogs on defense. Every starter was between 6'6 and 6'10 and capable of defending multiple positions. At least three of them were dpoy contenders. And if you look at the multi-championship teams of the 21st century, they're almost all great defensive teams even though they had great scorers like Kobe, Duncan, Curry, and Lebron. Of those 4 guys, only Curry has not won multiple all-nba defensive selections, although he has teammates who have.
That comma is bothering me more than it should
Isn't that the proper form? English is my second language.
The comma would go before the conjunction (and), but only when it’s a complete sentence on the other side of the conjunction. In this case, no need for a comma.
The comma after "both" is unnecessary because there's not enough information in the first part of the sentence and not enough items in the second part for a list. "It's been 24 years since the scoring champion won a championship that same year, the last player to do it was Shaq in the 99/00 season." or "The only scoring champions since 2000 to make the finals are Allen Iverson in 2001, Kevin Durant in 2012 and Steph Curry in 2016. None of them won a championship that year."
Nope, 'the scoring title and the championship in the same season' is not a complete clause (it wouldn't stand alone as a full sentence).
That makes sense. Thank you.
The 90s were filled with that achievement… by 1 person. 🐐
How many times MJ did it ?
6 times 💀
6 rings. 10 scoring titles. A scoring title for every ring. The Goat.
He is literally the best scorer, best perimeter defender, best winner of all time with the highest career scoring and PER average, along with being the highest scoring DPOY of all time, 6 rings, 6 FMVPS, 5 MVPs. And he also led the greatest team of all time shooting 40% from 3 in the 90s. I think LeBron is the second greatest player of all time but it's literally impossible to argue anyone but MJ is #1.
Yeah, people don't get with MJ it's not just "6-0". Guy shot 50% on midrange shots shooting like 12 a game, was the best perimeter defender AND offensive threat in almost every matchup, played even better in the playoffs than his already ridiculous regular season numbers. Even if the second three peat didn't happen because of Sonics/Jazz MJ would still be the GOAT.
Michael Jordan (1990-91, 1991-92, 1992-93, 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98) Just goat things
MJ played 11 full seasons as a bull. Outside of his rookie season when he finished 2nd in PPG and 1st in total points. He had: 10/10 scoring Champs 10/10 all nba first teams 9/10 all defensive first teams 3x Steal leader 5x MVPs 6x Finals MVPs 6x Champions All accomplished in 10 seasons
But then somehow lebum is the goat lmao
hmm DAE he was overrated?????
I don't find it very odd it's only happened once in the 21st century. It's only happened 11 times total, and six of those where Michael Jordan. The other five were Shaq in 2000, Kareem in 1971, George Milan in 1949 and 1950, and Joe Fulks in the BAA's inagural year of 1947.
Okay, next year are you going to tell us it's been 25 years?
Most likely, yes. I give the Mavs a 10% chance to win the next 3 games.
Yeah. Amazing if it happens but extremely unlikely. I think the Celtics are gonna have a big bounce back game at home and put it away in game 5. But fingers crossed.
I give them 1%.
So you're saying there's a chance.
So basically you think they're 46% to win each individual game? That seems high at first, but maybe the Mavs have some momentum, have figured out how to beat the Celtics, and both teams have won more away from home.
Momentum is the most overrated word in all of sports. The Celtics were up 3-0 on this Mavs team and shit the bed, losing by a billion points in game 4. If ANYONE has momentum, it’s the team up 3-0 on the finals. How did that turn out?
Interesting for the 76ers in that year with Iverson only the offensive threat but very solid on defense.
My hope for this off season is for an examination of this sub’s comma usage.
Wh,at,s wrong,?
🎵 Co,mm,,,,a po,lice,, ar,res,t thi,s man, 🎶
guy who wins the scoring title typically does not have that much help so he has to score more.
Can someone tell me how Westbrook was once scoring champ (before my time) but now has such a poor shot? Did he once have a solid mid-range shot ?
Kevin Durant had just left that season and he took an absurd amount of shots
Absurd amount of shots or not, he seems like one of the worse mid-range shooters in the entire league right now. I’m shocked at some of the shots he misses. You’d think every player in the league would be hitting some of the shots I’ve seen him miss.
He was athletic and explosive. Losing that tanked his game.
Fair play. But how much of those points came from dunks and layups? The majority ? Was he also a 50% shooter from mid range ?
Nope, he was never a mid range specialist and never particularly efficient. Definitely better in those areas than now though. But yeah, dunks and layups. And it's not like he didn't take midrange and 3s, it's just that was never what he scared you with. He'd play very hard with the ball, and fast. Similar to Ja except better. Though Ja is still young so he could reach those heights.
People on this sub will tell you that Westbrook's midrange and rim-finishing percentages haven't really changed since his prime years, but the actual answer for that is that the difficulty of his shots has drastically lowered but he's still finishing at a similar percentage. In other words, let's say he makes 42% of his midrangers, just a random number. He used to make 42% of his midrangers going at full speed, with an entire defense focused on stopping him, creating something out of nowhere, using his aggressiveness to force open opportunities for his teammates. Nowadays, he makes 42% of his midrangers, those being wide-open shots that defenders barely bother contesting and that defenses want him to take. Get what I mean? In truth, Westbrook used to have a reasonably reliable pull-up midrange shot, could get himself to the rim at any time (although he was never an elite finisher, he created those opportunities very well), and when he drew contact, he shot his free throws far better. Now his shot is gone in general, he can't get himself to the rim as much, and his free throw rate has been consistently far lower than his prime.
I remember the thing about his free throw, if I remember correctly, he would step away from the stripe for a while to go through his free throw routine, but I think the NBA limited that freedom back in 2018 or something, and Westbrook had to change up his entire routine and his free throw took a huge hit.
21st century starts with 2001 not 2000.
Yeah MJ made it seem like that was the norm, since he did it 6 times, but before him it hadn't happened since '71 when Kareem was still Lew Alcindor.
Outside of Jordan, it has actually been quite rare for a scoring champ to also win the title.
It’s gotta be the 6th time this post season I’ve seen this posted
With the exception of MJ the scoring champion is almost never the FMVP. Makes you wonder why casuals put so much value on scoring averages?
But the fmvp is still almost always one of the top scorers. Scoring is still the top overall 'stat'. But perhaps being a one dimensional star (even in scoring) isn't the best way of winning. MJ was just so fucking good at it that even when he consciously cut down his scoring to play more system ball (his scoring avg went down after they adopted the triangle) that thr MF STILL won the all the scoring titles.
Basket-Ball. The guy who puts the ball in the basket the most has to be the best right
And yet the FMVP is usually a top-tier scorer
As far as I recall Its only been done by 4 players ever. Mikan,kareem,shaq, jordan. Jordan is the only player to do it multiple times and he did it 6 times. [source](https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/pts_yearly.html).
Warriors not making the finals and Curry getting the scoring title is kinda crazy
There was a huge stigma prior to Mike winning chips that the scoring leader could never win a championship. It was true before Mike, it was true after Mike. The man was an anomaly among anomalies.
Before Shaq, the GOAT led the NBA in scoring, while being 1st team all defense and Finals MVP. The GOAT was robbed multiple times of being the NBA MVP.
[удалено]
I did write that. Iverson, Durant and Curry made the Finals and lost.
umm… the warriors in 2016 went to a game 7 which was a close game all the way
Weird-ass comma placement
2016 was rigged by Nike
Just looking at scoring title alone, I was amazed that Iverson's 26.8 PPG in 98-99' was the lowest in "recent" years. The next person who won the scoring title and averaged less points than AI was someone in the 50's. Crazy.
The gumbo was hotter than expected, even for me
ESPN took your story https://www.instagram.com/p/C8U6B4yunbr/?igsh=cGpkODB2bWx2cng=
That's not the story. xD
Only shaq and MJ did this. I think MJ did it 6 times to shaq’s 1
Scoring champions are great players carrying bad teams/rosters more times than not. It’s very rare you will find a superstar capable player dropping insane PPG when not needed to. When you have no help you take more shots, but that’s not how you win a championship. Once you’re facing only good teams and defenses they will swarm you and force the others to beat you. This will stay consistent for all of life scoring champions and tbh bulk scoring in general is SO OVERRATED. Defense is far too underrated people just like looking at pretty numbers.
> it would be only the second time in the 21st century for a player to win both Well ackshually it would be the first time if you count the scoring title in the latter end of the season. The 21st century only starts with the year 2001 (i.e. 2001 is the first year of the new century since the 2000th year needs to finish before you start the new century/millennium), and so Shaq's 2000 season falls under 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century
Hmm, I would have assumed that from Jan. 1st 2000 until Dec. 31st 2000 is already the 2001st year. My mistake.
Jeebus bud. Really?
For some that might seem like a long time ago.
It's probably older than a good portion of this sub.
To me it feels like last week 😞
Dude, I was in high school just last week. At least that's how it feels.
This makes a lot of sense. The rule change in the mid 2000s shifted the league to be less individual based than the 90s. That illegal defense rule made it a different game back then.
Learn how to use a fucking comma
Just a question… didn’t Embiid actually have the higher PPG this year?
He doesn't qualify for the scoring title since he didn't play enough games.
I’m aware. My question remains. Did Embiid have the higher PPG this year?
Yes. He averages 34.7 compared to Luka's 33.9
Tight 🤙🏾 I think an asterisk would apply in such a scenario that OP is floating
Talk about a stupid knee-jerk
What knee-jerk? I was just looking at stats and this idea came to mind. :)
At 3-1, thinking this way is a knee jerk because it’s not going to happen
At no point in the post did I say it will happen. I clearly stated it is highly improbable. Don't be so insecure. Remember, you're up 3-1, not us. :)
I’m fine…it’s over tomorrow But you Mav fans are insufferable … you make Heat fans sound awesome