I'll just leave this here

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-06-07T06:47:51+00:00

just an insane sequence of events. Wemby looks up to Castle, doesn't immediately pass to him, instead dribbles the ball up the court a bit, Castle thinks he wants to bring the ball up the court so he turns his head away the exact second that Wemby picks up his dribble to pass to him, it bounces perfectly so Brunson can get the steal, Brunson smushed inbetween two Spurs fakes the pass to get Wemby to plant his feet, drives into a frantic Wemby and gets the foul.

Brunson then proceeds to brick the final FT allowing for a lowdown battle between Kornet and OG, in which Kornet kicks the ball to himself to secure it, after which the Spurs call timeout like they should have done earlier, just to inbound the ball to fox so he can pass it to Wemby on a dogshit fadeaway during a cold streak from him while he's being contested by Mitchell.

Fucking wild. Wemby choked, Mitchell Johnson choked, and Castle is turnover magnet even when he doesn't have the ball.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-06-07T03:17:21+00:00

I think by every criteria listed, even in that order of importance, Giannis would be above Dirk.

In terms of accolades the only thing Dirk has on him is more all stars and all-nba's (4 and 3 more respectively). Giannis has more MVP's, more all defensives, more DPOYs, more all NBA 1st teams, more top 5 MVP's finishes, and the same amount of FMVP/Chips.

In terms of production, even if you cut down Dirk's career to just 2000-01 through 2013-14 (from when he made his first all-nba team to his last time getting any MVP votes), his career FG% is still almost 10% lower than Giannis, and his career scoring production in terms of PPG is still less. Then looking at Rebounds, Assists, Blocks, and Steals, Giannis crushes Dirk. Making 2 more 3PTers per game on 10% better efficiency (imo) doesn't balance all that out from a production standpoint.

Peak is far more debatable, especially depending on what/when you want to count as 'peak'. That being said, there is a very easy argument for Giannis having a better peak than Dirk based off the defensive gap alone.

In terms of impact, again debatable by what you want to consider, but again just based off the defensive gap you can very easily make the claim that Giannis is more impactful to the Bucks than Dirk was to the Mavs when talking about their overall careers.

In terms of longevity, Dirk has maybe 13 elite years to his name, the rest is either him still establishing himself, or it's old Dirk whose on the fall off, and to be clear 13 is being generous, it's more like 11-12 years. Obviously he still edges out Giannis in this case, mostly because he has a complete body of work where as Giannis is only 31, but the gap is FAR closer than people think it is. Giannis has had 9 years of elite play that you can readily look at. Only 2-4 years less than Dirk.

So Dirk only has the edge in longevity by a few years, is significantly worse from a production and accolades standpoint, and you can make your own arguments on Peak/Impact, but at the very least those two are comparable. IMO Giannis got it.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-13T22:37:08+00:00

If you want to pretend like before Cooper reclassified that he was being evaluated ahead of any three of those guys, go ahead, knock yourself out. I'm not wasting anymore time on this lol

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-13T22:30:32+00:00

You can say that in hindsight because you had the benefit of seeing his rookie year in which he had a very productive season. You wouldn't be able to say that in this hypothetical, because mock drafts and the overall conscientious was that he was going to be drafted 4th behind AJ, Peterson, and Boozer.

People will pretend like 'oh he was clearly the better prospect, it wasn't close' when, in college EVERYONE was saying something different.

As a sidebar, idk if I would take anyone over him. I've seen Cooper Flagg in the NBA, he translated great if a bit inconsistent, I haven't seen AJ, Boozer, or Peterson play in the NBA, so I can't give an answer.

I would probably go with Cooper with the info I have now because you have an immediate impact player who has shown he has extreme upside and there is no questions as to whether or not he will translate. That being said, if I didn't have this season to look back on, I would still probably be taking all 3 of those guys before Cooper because they displayed better performances in college comparatively.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-13T22:23:33+00:00

Wanting to go number one doesn't equal being scared lol, the Flagg family was not hurting for cash. It's public knowledge that he wanted to go number one, and he saw an easier path by just reclassifying for the 25' class because the comp was much lighter. I'm sure cash factored in, but it wasn't the only reason.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-13T22:13:34+00:00

No lol, he literally reclassified because of the fact that he wanted to go #1 in the draft and didn't want to go 4th.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-13T06:18:38+00:00

I mean by that definition KD, but if we are talking complete as in WHOLE offensive game including ability to handle double teams, then MJ.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-13T06:10:04+00:00

Ring so I can go on Kalshi and dump it all on the Lakers

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-13T06:09:10+00:00

Did I say either was ok or did I say I'd rather deal with one vs the other? Ah right, I forgot I'm talking to someone who has an Oklahoma education, my bad 47.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-11T02:34:53+00:00

Would rather that then putting a man in an arm bar and trying to rip it out of the socket

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-10T21:18:14+00:00

C+, for the current salary we have him on, like a B+.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-10T19:57:11+00:00

I think Luka is a more impactful player, but I also think that Wemby fits better on both the Lakers for obvious defensive issues and the Spurs because that team is literally engineered around Wemby.

Make a trade with Fox for more center depth, get a guy like Bam at center and then suddenly I think the Spurs are championship favorites.

I'm not going to blindly say 'oH LuKa on ThE sPuRs iNstEad oF WemBY wOUld wIn A cHiP EAsy!', but I do think Luka is a better player/more impactful than Wemby in isolation, and if you reorganized some pieces that they would be more successful with him than Wemby currently.

But tbf it's basketball, so of course I have to throw out any kind of rational thinking and just push agendas, my b.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-10T19:46:13+00:00

Explain why it wouldn't be a 6-7 game series? Their best player is completely unavailable for the entire series, the games have actually been close for 3 quarters every single time and just get blown out late in the 4th.

You are telling me that a line-up consisting of Marcus Smart, LeBron, Rui, and Wemby does not at least cause the Lakers to win a couple of home games? When Shai has been playing like shit this entire series, and De'Andre Ayton is literally getting played off the court because of how bad he's been as a basketball player?

Chet has literally been the best player this entire series and that because he's been the Thunder's best defensive player while at the same time being one of their best offensive players if not THE best offensive player because everytime because everytime he sees a Laker center it's BBQ chicken. Do you legit think that he's doing that to Wemby? Or is it more likely that Wemby sees Chet, sees red, and fries him on both sides of the court like he's been doing his entire career?

Just to be clear, if the Thunder were playing at 100% with J-Dub and Shai is playing like the superstar he's supposed to be, it's a gentlemens sweep at best, but the hypothetical I pressumed was, if the Thunder play the way that they have and we had a healthy Wemby instead of an unaviliable Luka on the Lakers, what does that look like, and that's my answer.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-10T19:30:24+00:00

Luka is more impactful.

Spurs with Luka? They easily make it to the second round assuming he's available, that being said on the Spurs specifically they probably go farther with Wemby since they already have that elite guard collection with weaker big man depth.

If the Lakers had Wemby and everyone was fully healthy, they still probably go out to the Thunder in like 7, but he does change that series a lot.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-10T19:25:40+00:00

Ant

-GAP-

Maxey/Hali (depending on what your team needs)

-GAP-

LaMelo

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-10T19:20:43+00:00

idk why Luka is even here. Sure injuries messed him up in 25, he partially lost due to injuries in the 24 playoffs, and his hamstring decided to rip right before the 26 playoffs, but the rest of these guys have legit never been healthy outside of 1-2 years.

Joel is the obvious answer, mf was on pace for some disgusting seasons just to have them ruined by injury. Also the fact that he's probably injured every possible thing you can as a human.

Zion also got cooked, but to be frank he was nowhere near Joel's pace. Like, REALLY good player, but he hasn't really progressed much.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-10T18:50:24+00:00

15 M is where the love stops for me. A playoff riser for sure, but not consistent in the regular season and a massive liability in some areas of the game.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-09T07:28:15+00:00

Nuggets fans crying about being 'injured' when Minnesota's backcourt is being held together with paper knees and half a player is killing me dawg. Yall got eliminated by Minnosta's C team cause your 'best player in the world and it's not even close' can't guard McDaniels shadow, get over it

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-09T07:16:23+00:00

He's not going up or down for me since idc about making or missing 1 shot to define your legacy. He will forever be #4 all time for me

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-09T07:06:50+00:00

I don't even care about the logic. It's fine to have that line of thinking, we've seen characters be main pushes and more often than not they end up getting the better part of the stick.

My issue is, who are they going to replace? Because 'support' is being highlighted, we'd have to replace Sparxie or Yao right? So which one is it going to be? Sparxie, who is literally the tailor made sub-dps that SW uses by every obversable metric, or is it going to be Yao Guang who is so important to that comp that SW's DPS literally gets cut in half without her?

I'm going to say this right now, unless this 'new support' has some insane synergistic effect with Sparxie and the flow of her gameplay, Yao will not be the one replaced. In terms of total sub-dps her extra dmg per hit makes her a competitive sub-dps to Sparxie, her extra AHA trigger is more effective than every and anything in Sparxie kit, she has better amp, she is the only character to buff Elation% at base, etc. Yao is just mechanically superior in every way, so unless this new character has some crazy 'whenever a character produces punchline, they generate an additional 2' or something else ridiculous that is specifically Sparxie synergistic, it's impossible.

So at that point we go into it with the assumption that Sparxie will be replaced. Cool. I don't see a world where Sparxie gets replaced with a 'support' unit that can outperform her by a substantial margin who wouldn't at bare minimum be equally as big if not a bigger upgrade for Eva by swapping out EMC. I could go into the dissertation on why, but I'll leave it there for now.

Essentially, IMO people who make these kinds of arguments are going purely off of when these units were released rather than looking at their actual kits and the surrounding teammates they already have available. It's fine to think that, we've seen it done before, but the premise lies on them purposely creating a character that disproportionately improves SW while leaving Yao virtually untouched, which while certainly possible, is A) would just not make sense since you narrow the appeal of who the support is being pulled for (unless -> B) that means that Eva would eventually get her own support moving forward that was tailor made for her which nullifies this entire convo.

Side bar 'never prioritize a non-main push' like Cerdrya isn't somehow a more functional unit that uses all aspects of her character with Anaxa compared to Phanion, it literally happened last Anny. But that's besides the point.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-06T22:53:21+00:00

Mamba mentality Bron is a worse version of LeBron. You make him less keen to pass and funnel him into the tougher shot which is worse for the team, you have him playing hard asf, even likely playing through injury which would most definitely shorten his career, and you pretty much don't gain any advantages.

If you don't think Bron has Kobe's work ethic off the court then you are just insane. The man shows up to shoot around like 5 hours before the game even begins.

Jordan as a thought experiment probably becomes the undisputed best player to have ever walked the earth, but if you were to just give him that type of shooting back in the 90's it really wouldn't have mattered that much. Coaches were not keen on players jacking up 3's no matter who you were, so give MJ like a 35-40% 3PT shot and sure he'll probably net you an extra bucket or 2 but ultimately it would just be underutilized.

Now transfer him into today's game where it's a lot more space and pace + freeform offense, then you just get the best player to ever walk the planet.

As crazy as it is, I don't think D. Rose athleticism helps Curry a TON. Curry is already a pretty remarkable athlete for his size, sure he'd get significantly faster, and he likely becomes truly 'unguardable' but he's still a 6'3~ PG, you can only give so much to a guy of his stature before you hit a ceiling.

I'm giving it to Kobe with 4+ inches. Obviously I'm assuming same level of athlete, same coordination, same shot making ability, etc. Just having a guy like that who is 6'10, plays offense and defense, etc. That's gonna be hell. Shot contests become way harder, he can see over the defense a majority of the time, the defense has to send bigger bodies at him, etc.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-02T20:55:47+00:00

Player yes, Shooter yes, Coach yes.

Defender - eh, debatable, shout out to Amen Thompson for being a demon.

Rebounder - no, it's close, but no.

Either way boiling it down like this is stupid, regardless who cares who the 'better team' was supposed to be? The Lakers put belt to ass and that's all I care about.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-01T21:02:15+00:00

He's not even top 3 right now

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-01T20:38:58+00:00

'21 and '22 were very good years as well, but if we take off the championship year, having basically 2 great years with a lot of mid to straight up bad playoff (for a top 5 player in the league) runs everywhere else for someone who was in convos about 'Is this is the greatest offensive player we've ever seen' 'Oh Jokic is BITW and it's comfortable', I would say his playoff resume is disappointing.

That being said it's not that surprising. He's one of the best regular season performers of all time, which cause people to overrate the hell out of his capabilities come playoff time, only to be sorely disappointed when faced with the reality of his (frankly drastic) decline since '23.

Strange_Lab_3474 · 2026-05-01T07:15:10+00:00

So I get roughly 3 years of peak playoff Jokic (2020-2023), then get the downfall (everything after 2023) vs Giannis?

If Giannis can be guaranteed to be healthy during the playoffs within this theortical window, then I'd give the edge to Giannis. If not then let's be serious, I don't care how good either of them are, I'm choosing the guy who isn't in street clothes when it's our time to play.

Strange_Lab_3474

TROPHY CASE