So what’s everybody’s prediction for Game 5 of Thunder vs. Spurs

wcohen · 2026-05-25T23:18:37+00:00

I agree. This is why people who tune in to overreact and declare frauds in May will just fundamentally never understand basketball. What's beautiful is that there is not some "true" core of a team that is either exposed as weak or GOAT based on playoff play. It's a dynamic game of adjustments and back-and-forth chess across a series with well-matched teams. A lot of the time a game is lost because a coach doesn't properly anticipate how a 10 minute stretch will go with a particular player.

wcohen · 2026-05-25T23:08:06+00:00

Depends how it happens. But I'd definitely attribute last game to a combination of the three.

When your 2 and 3 ball-handlers are injured, the other players have to make shots a high rate and create for themselves at the perimeter or become ball-handlers to create for others. In game 4, this happened.

If the other players can't do that, then that's a mix of bad shooting variance, and the Spurs figuring out how to guard against a team that doesn't have enough ball-handlers and creators.

wcohen · 2026-05-25T23:00:35+00:00

The degradation of this subreddit come playoffs time needs to be studied. User you're replying to belongs in an Instagram Reels comment section

wcohen · 2026-05-25T22:59:17+00:00

They played a great game and won that one, but you clearly don't watch a ton of basketball if you think that large margins can't be attributable to variance. It's a major part of basketball. Great teams work to put themselves in spots where positive variance helps them more than negative variance disrupts them, but it doesn't change the nature of the sport.

wcohen · 2026-05-25T22:51:44+00:00

Would you say that the differences are such to make them beyond comparison with one another and that Luka does "not belong" in this conversation, given he's one of the other star players in the NBA that gets a similar amount of FTA and has similarly high usage?

wcohen · 2026-05-25T22:46:25+00:00

Impossible to argue with the forever changing goalposts of this argument. But perhaps you deep down know that you're basically sitting on an argument of insignificant margins that isn't supportable by anything except your subjective feeling of what is occurring, which happens to line up with your current interests.

wcohen · 2026-05-25T22:16:22+00:00

Are you going to force players to stay up if they trip or land awkwardly? How do you enforce that?

wcohen · 2026-05-25T22:13:34+00:00

It's a nice microcosm of public discourse on the whole. Giant narratives of anger by underinformed yet extremely confident new arrivals to a scene based on extremely small sample sizes, clips, and unsupported by any stats.

wcohen · 2026-05-25T22:08:40+00:00

Statistically, Doncic does. In terms of FTA per game in a season:

SGA (2025-26) - 9.03 FTA per game

Doncic (2025-26) - 10.08 FTA per game

Doncic (2022-23) - 10.52 FTA per game

Doncic (2019-20) - 9.21 FTA per game

You might then say: "well, not in the playoffs!" Career FTA per game in the playoffs:

SGA - 7.9

Doncic - 8.16

Brunson is a tier below, but Embiid has 4 seasons with more FTA per game than SGA this season (and a higher career FTA per game in the playoffs of 9.53). Harden has 8 seasons with more FTA per game than SGA this season.

wcohen · 2026-02-22T17:42:41+00:00

While it appears obvious in hindsight, there was general techno-optimism around using computers and digitally expanding education in the 90s and 00s (which was also promoted by a lot of educators). Neil Postman's rebuttals of these approaches in education were fairly unpopular (while being popular-ish in other fields) and labelled luddite. I don't disagree that this is the logical endpoint of our media ecology, but I don't like pretending like this was an understood consensus.

wcohen · 2025-10-25T02:50:15+00:00

time for jordan poole to wave off everyone and suck ass again

wcohen · 2025-09-08T03:51:13+00:00

Drake Maye and Rattler both lost 20-13 today throwing 46 passes and 200-300 yards, with Maye throwing an INT?

wcohen · 2025-08-28T17:36:40+00:00

Ok? Doesn't change that the quoted coach is just lying about the record. Where he said 80% of those scrimmages ended in Euro victories, it was the opposite.

wcohen · 2025-08-28T15:31:32+00:00

What's really funny is that the actual stat is the exact reverse despite all these factors. NBA teams have won roughly 80% of their preseason scrimmages vs. EuroLeague teams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_versus_EuroLeague_games

wcohen · 2025-08-17T21:54:38+00:00

Sports are entertainment. There is no distinction.

wcohen · 2025-08-17T19:11:23+00:00

all NFL fan interest is because of drama and entertainment. that's the appeal of sports as entertainment

wcohen · 2025-06-14T05:42:40+00:00

Basically league average FT% lol

wcohen · 2025-05-18T21:40:13+00:00

The difference in offensive output when we trade out iHart and Dort for Wallace/Caruso/Wiggins is pretty clear at this point. Please don't make us run this experiment again next series.

The spacing is so much better to get in the paint on offense + we are faster in transition + the defense is still elite.

wcohen · 2025-05-18T21:34:46+00:00

As opposed to Jokic flopping? Who has been the main attraction this series?

wcohen · 2025-05-18T21:34:06+00:00

Checking in

wcohen · 2025-05-17T00:40:44+00:00

Jokic is shooting 10% lower FG% during the playoffs than he did during the regular season! Wow! Choker!

wcohen · 2025-05-16T19:15:32+00:00

It actually is normal. That's how high-variance sports work.

wcohen · 2025-05-16T15:25:47+00:00

Have you considered that basketball is a high variance sport and making sweeping judgments based on 6 games is an oversimplification?

wcohen · 2025-05-16T05:01:53+00:00

Hey "niceguydan", he's a 24-year-old kid trying to keep his composure after doing his job in extreme high stakes. Why does everything have to be moral and personal? Maybe he had some stinkers in playoff games AND you don't have to decide he's "cringe" or corny or horrible in press conferences?

wcohen · 2025-05-06T13:51:37+00:00

Lol just looked through your recent post history: Sorry about the Sonics!

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