Luka Doncic Discussion: Lean Mean Slovenian Extension Machine

“Backstreet Boys?”
Looks like a way to try and pretend to be relevant when your time has passed 30 years ago.

 

ouch

 

Bye bye bye

 

Sources: LeBron James congratulated Luka Doncic on new deal

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45901153/sources-lebron-james-congratulated-luka-doncic-new-deal

 

In before someone twists Lebron's words like a pretzel.

 

Lebron trying to prove he's a great guy

 

Like right above? Good job though you beat him.

 

lebron and luka clearly like and respect each other. lebron's issues are with the FO. sorta like DFS and luka love each other, but DFS and the FO have different priorities. life is like this sometimes.

 

Was reviewing some Luka quotes from the signing, and didn't see these quotes posted in thread. You probably heard or read them in articles, but they're worth highlighting here:

 

I'm hopeful their mutual respect and early signs of chemistry on the floor translate to a really great season. Luka is good for a 50 win season with our roster sans Lebron. Lebron probably could do something similar.

I'm anticipating 50-54 wins and the 3rd or 4th seed again year. I think it'll go something like this:

OKC - 65ish wins
DEN - 55ish
HOU - 55ish
LAL - 52ish
MIN - 50ish
LAC - 50ish
DAL - 50ish
SAS - 45ish
GSW - 45ish
MEM - 40ish
POR - 40ish
PHX - 40ish

I think the west is going to be an absolute blood bath this year. I think the Pelicans and Kings blow it up at the deadline, Memphis and Phoenix should do the same. Some names that could be available:

Zion
Herb Jones or Trey Murphy (one of them)
Dejounte Murray
Saddiq Bey
Jordan Poole

Devin Carter
Derozan
Keon Ellis
Fultz
Sabonis
Keegan Murray
Malik Monk
Schroeder

 

60 wins or it's a lost season

 

Agree with most. There are 3 teams with significant deviations from Vegas win totals. Those are:

Dallas - 40ish in Vegas. I agree more with you and think it will be closer to 50 than 40, assuming reasonable health from AD and everyone outside of Kyrie.

Portland - 33ish in Vegas. I agree more with Vegas and think it will be closer to 33 than 40.

Phoenix - 31ish in Vegas. I agree more with Vegas and think it will be closer to 31 than 40.

Like you said, West too tough. And with Dallas, Denver, and San Antonio increasing their wins, they have to come from somewhere, so I think Portland and Phoenix will be sub-par and not a nearly 0.500 team. I guess Minnesota could dip a little too, and Utah could flirt with all time lows.

 

Let me preface this by saying I don’t like him, but I think Devin Booker is going to have an MVP caliber season. Something like 30/8. It’ll be one of those Harden carry jobs with lots of FTs and media attention. I expect Brooks, Mark Williams and Jalen Green to have positive seasons. They might not break 40, but I think they’re between 35-40.

Portland is coming up, they’ve got a great young core and the secret weapon in the regular season is just playing hard. They finished with 36 wins last year, I don’t expect them to regress with internal growth - Jrue also helps them out and alongside Camara and Clingan they should have a formidable defense alongside a lot of youthful energy.

Dallas is a bit of a wild card, but they’ll just win a good chunk of games based on size.

Russell (6’4) / Irving (6’3)
Christie (6’6) / Klay (6’6)
Flag (6’10) / Nanji (6’7)
AD (6’11) / PJ (6’8)
Lively (7’1) / Gafford (6’11)

They’re just a big team. They’ve got some playmaking issues without Irving that means they won’t be a top of the heap. But on about 40 nights AD will just go supernova and do a 30/10 with elite defense. They’ve also got some good shooting.

 

Agree about Dallas, as mentioned earlier. And you could be right about Portland and Phoenix too, I could see it. Just saying that the wins have to come from somewhere, so where do they come from? Last season the West won 638 games. Your estimates are at 587 wins for 12 teams. If the other 3 teams do what they did last season (78 wins), that's 665 wins, which is 27 more than last season. Even if the other 3 teams win fewer games than last season, it wouldn't be 27 games worse, so some other teams can't be quite as high as estimated.

Also, for Portland and Phoenix to be nearly 0.500, that means that if they win most of their games against the bottom 3 but lose most of their games against the top 3, then they still have to be nearly breakeven against the #4-9 teams. But they just don't seem in the same tier as the Lakers, Minnesota, Clippers, Golden State, Dallas, SA.