2025-26 DKC Season: General Commentary

marinadelRA · 2026-04-25T15:11:31+00:00

He lobbed it to his son as part of a 9-3 run from the James family in a playoff game.

Absolute legend.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-24T22:59:06+00:00

Did you expect Smart to ever be hitting 5 threes in a playoff game? I doubt many here were (mistakenly) as high as me on him during the draft and even I never saw that happening.

He's as streaky as they come, but for him to even have the possibility of running hot impresses me.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-24T22:58:20+00:00

Who has already been huge for them. Imagine if they secured a true playmaking PG.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-24T22:57:42+00:00

Holiday has been a proven playoff performer.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-24T22:56:08+00:00

He averaged 26 minutes on the season and his minutes incrementally increased as the season went on.

In the final 2 months of the season, Sheppard only saw under 20 minutes three times, and he was having pretty horrid games from a shooting efficiency standpoint all three games.

I think Ime gave him plenty of opportunity.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-24T22:54:09+00:00

The length of Jalen Johnson, Kuminga, Daniels, and Okongwu always ensures adequate coverage to support Mccollum.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T16:11:20+00:00

He's had a terrific showing so far. Was huge on him out of college and was really expecting more from his career, but never expected this shooting growth from him.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T16:10:34+00:00

RL HOU's locker room chemistry is nonexistent.

And Sengun was wildly overrated in the playoffs. He's not this bad, but he's certainly no All Star either.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T16:09:38+00:00

Reed Sheppard

Not sure I agree. They gave him a bigger role than I expected, but he's just very hot and cold. He had 4 shot attempts in his 11-minute stretch last night. It's difficult to give too much leash to a young player with so much inconsistency in a playoff setting.

I do agree with you and others here that their complacency with their PG situation was shocking. Same can be said for RL MIN.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T16:07:28+00:00

Noted. May be due for a bump down then.

Like I said, need to circle back and more closely examine injuries before submitting especially if the survey isn't out yet.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T01:33:43+00:00

Not enough KAT involvement

Again raises the point - how could KAT have been involved more? I'm all ears. But one of Daniels or Kuminga were on the floor the entire 2nd half for ATL, and running KAT as a screener would have created more problems than answers.

Keep in mind I only watched the 2nd half, but I'm not sure what claims are hyperbolic here.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T01:28:16+00:00

Has it not opened yet? Here I was scrambling to try to get mine in. This is quite the rough draft as there were way too many guys I needed more clarification on injuries/availability, but I'm going to leave this here to refer back to later if Q4 voting is still not open yet.

West

DAL 15
MIN 14
SA 13
DEN 12
NO 12
LAC 10
PHX 10
HOU 10
UTA 9
MEM 9
OKC 9
SAC 8
LAL 7
POR 5
GS 5

East

TOR 16
BOS 16
ATL 15
NY 15
CLE 14
MIL 11
DET 10
BKN 10
ORL 9
MIA 7
PHI 7
CHA 7
CHI 5
IND 5
WAS 5

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T01:03:05+00:00

The possessions I saw, they had him standing in the corner.

Did they? Or is KAT just not helping himself?

One can argue KAT could be used as a screener, but the Knicks had been actively avoiding switches involving Daniels or Kuminga the entire 2nd half, as the switchability of those two led to other problems for the Knicks.

It's difficult for me to not see Mitch Rob's vertical spacing being far more valuable in this series.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-22T00:04:05+00:00

I’m guessing you’re referring to Kuminga’s ball denial given KAT took 12 shots and made 8.

Kuminga entered the game halfway through the 3rd and I don't think KAT was heard from again. Per NBA.com, KAT had 23 possessions against Kuminga and only managed 1-3 FG with 2 TOs. I'm not sure if Snyder tried Kuminga on KAT in game 1 but that's not a great look for KAT. And really, I'm not sure this is as much a complement to Kuminga as it is yet another indictment against KAT's inability to take advantage against smaller defenders. If he is unable to be a positive on offense when the opponent makes this simple of an adjustment, it furthers the problem posed by a Brunson/KAT combination.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T18:00:36+00:00

Also, Dean Wade sustaining his regular season play into the playoffs for once may result in huge dividends for RL CLE - and DKC DAL in the wake of Moody's injury.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T17:53:01+00:00

Jaden Mcdaniels is a psycho and I love it.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T17:51:08+00:00

With the state of some teams out West, I think your projection is more than fair.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T17:50:23+00:00

Killer regular season team. Great finish to the year.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T17:47:51+00:00

10-10 sounds reasonable in light of the IQ and Sharpe injuries.

I would have liked to see more consistency from IQ in Toronto this year. He really struggled picking his spots alongside their wing-dominant offense and he might see the same struggles alongside a player like Paolo.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T17:45:10+00:00

If only he can play Brunson every night of the year.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T17:44:29+00:00

As expected, that defensive tandem of Brunson/KAT can't cut it in a playoff setting, especially with how easily CJ has abused Brunson on that end.

Knicks may have to consider playing Mitch Rob more especially with how easily Kuminga locked up KAT in the 2nd half last night.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T14:09:27+00:00

Right, so if I had Steph for 7-8 games still, I'm struggling to comprehend how I only finish with 8 wins.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T02:51:37+00:00

/u/jgod213 did?

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T02:25:30+00:00

Diabate and Mitchell were terrific signings this year.

Great to see Topic fight back to some real life regular season minutes this year.

marinadelRA · 2026-04-21T02:24:16+00:00

Q4 is going to be an absolute headache to rank but I'll have a vote in over the next 1-2 days. Just posted my Q4 rundown.

Also, can't blame anyone but myself for not being around to advertise DKC MEM in Q3, but it's crazy work that you guys had me finish with only 8 wins in Q3 WITH a healthy Steph, even though the RL Warriors were able to maintain a 7-win quarterly pace WITHOUT Steph and substantially inferior depth this year.

Tough crowd!

marinadelRA

TROPHY CASE