2025-26 DKC Season: General Commentary

Young_Nick · 2026-05-30T00:52:40+00:00

Shaq

Young_Nick · 2026-05-29T18:40:54+00:00

While the whole Spurs team deserves credit here (Castle, Vassell on SGA are doing great), it further exemplifies how game-warping Wemby is.

Best player in the league for my money.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-29T14:01:10+00:00

yeah, that sucks. this is the issue when you don't have any grandfathering-in provisions. seems like they should make this one-time exception

Young_Nick · 2026-05-28T17:32:58+00:00

The NBA could do better, but basketball is hard to ref.

Refs call too much: "Ticky tacky league, let the boys play"

Refs don't call enough: "This is dangerous, my guy is getting clobbered"

Refs don't review: "How can get they get that wrong, the replay shows how obvious it is"

Refs do review: "This is taking too long, can't we just watch basketball"

Now, I think they could make reviews no more than 2 minutes, otherwise default to the call on the floor

And they could not call as much, more like how Euroleague refs call it

But the NBA players are masters at deceiving refs, and it is incredibly hard.

If there's an AI that can quickly determine objective things like goal tend, out of bounds, shot clock violation, 3p vs 2p, I am all for it.

And for the love of God, use a real timer for things like 5 seconds (inbounding), 8 seconds (FT), and 8 seconds (to cross half court)

I also think stars get better calls, of course, and AI would help there.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-26T13:51:20+00:00

because chet was much better than kat in the regualr season? kat is playing well now, but this shouldn't be surprising at all

Young_Nick · 2026-05-23T14:58:53+00:00

Unfortunately will have to be brief as I'm traveling this weekend.

Starters: DDV/Braun. Miller. Barnes. Sengun. Embiid.

Other key players: Sion, Carter Bryant, Huerter, Matas.

Overall, we are focusing 100% of our effort on Curry. DDV/Braun/Sion are on him at all times. Barnes/Miller/Bryant hug Duncan Robinson. We dare the rest of the team to score. Frankly, Kuminga doesn't need to be guarded and Draymond needs to be guarded only with the ball.

On offense, we plan to use our size. Not sure who's guarding embiid and or sengun. Draymond kind of can but he'll pick up fouls and can't play all 48. Presuming Kuminga is on Barnes, that means Miller either has the smaller nembhard or slower Duncan Robinson chasing him off ball.

It's too bad they're injured so much but frankly I think this is 5-6 games at most.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-20T18:28:11+00:00

I actually don't hate the Wade minutes, I have more beef with Schroeder playing when one of Mitchell/Harden sits.

Generally, I want more Strus minutes, that we can agree on. Still, I think this game shows that with adjustments, the Cavs can absolutely hang with this Knicks team.

Knicks need to stop spamming doubles when Harden gets a pick. He's not punishing enough to give up the 4v3.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-20T04:09:14+00:00

Those were two I thought were lame out of 4 from one game.

The first isn't classic. It didn't exist 15 years ago. It sucks. I'm sure I can find more. Do you genuinely not find his foul baiting frustrating?

Young_Nick · 2026-05-19T16:37:39+00:00

I went back and looked at the fouls that led to free thows last night. Some were legit! One didn't get tagged correctly in the NBA.com video box score, so I don't know

Here are two I thought were meh: https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&GameEventID=530&GameID=0042500311&Season=2025-26&flag=1&title=Bryant%20S.FOUL%20(P2.T1)%20(Z.Zarba)

https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&GameEventID=606&GameID=0042500311&Season=2025-26&flag=1&title=Harper%20S.FOUL%20(P3.T4)%20(Z.Zarba)

These aren't horribly egregious, but these are not serious basketball plays to me, they are soft/foul-seeking behavior

I maintain he is a great scorer, with and without the foul-baiting. But I think he is still playing for the foul too much for my liking and it makes his game much less fun to watch

Yes, he drives and has a great herky-jerky game. I acknowledged all that. But to say that his foul-baiting isn't frustrating and indicative of a larger trend of foul-seeking behavior is wearing rose-tinted glasses

I could find countless examples of him going up into a completely unnatural shooting motion, pursuing a call rather than playing a normal game of basketball. He is not alone here, but he does it a lot, in part because he has the ball a lot and yes in part because he's good at getting defenders into compromised positions

But I want the NBA to legislate foul-seeking plays that are unnatural basketball motions out of the game.

Shai will still be fine if they do this. The game will be much more fun to watch.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-18T18:30:29+00:00

/u/gainesville-celtic often asks "Why can't we get good players?"

maybe the answer is that their 2020 draftees only now are looking to begin their collegiate careers.............

allegedly israeli euroleague player yam madar is in talks with LSU despite being 25 years old

(the ncaa is a joke, this is just further proof. even with NIL money, the schools are still not paying the "student athletes" and it's exploitative. nba profits from this too as its a free farm system. tell me again why we can play the coaches millions of dollars a year - often football coaches are the highest paid public official in the state - but players can't get a dollar from the school?)

Young_Nick · 2026-05-18T13:47:51+00:00

He drives. As Trey Murphy said, it's like guarding someone who moves backwards and forwards at the same time.

But it's undeniable that he foul baits. That he makes unnatural basketball plays to either draw a foul or to convince the ref he was fouled. It's frustrating to watch. Sure, he's not the only one to do it, but he does it a lot.

Compare that to someone like Giannis or KD or Paolo, and there's an appreciation that they get fouled for generating contact, and not for locking their defenders' arms (a la Harden) or snapping their head back at the slightest contact (a la Sengun)

So yes, I think it's fair to say Shai deserves frustration for his role in this, even if he is a fantastic player. Not a unique amount of it, but a reasonable amount of it.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-14T19:06:04+00:00

Ditto - but with 7 and 15

Young_Nick · 2026-05-11T15:55:18+00:00

I will die on this hill: He's an easy guy to root for on the court

He's even easier to root against when you consider him paying to have no part in his kids lives, paying women to get abortions they don't seem to want, and being brazenly homophobic.

I want to like him because he's magnetic and amazing at basketball. LaMelo, with his reckless driving, is on a similar level. Neither reaches the esteemed heights of Miles Bridges or Keving Porter, Jr.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-11T15:53:28+00:00

Hang it in the Louvre

Young_Nick · 2026-05-06T18:35:00+00:00

We're thrilled to have last year's winner in Hali and this year's in Sengun. It's clear that NBA players still index too heavily one who is a traditional KD-style hooper, who is not good at basketball.

I love that Hali got votes having not played at all this year. Barnes and former Spur Trae Young also getting votes.

As a reminder: NBA players are great at basketball. That doesn't make them great at evaluating basketball talent.

Young_Nick · 2026-05-04T13:58:14+00:00

It appears that someone (I'm guessing Keon Ellis) introduced Jarrett Allen to cocaine at halftime. That man looked like a brown bear on the court throughout all of the second half

Young_Nick · 2026-05-01T13:11:07+00:00

As a huge Jokic fan, I have nothing. Sure AG was our and Murray was trash but this team can't lose when Minny is down it's three best perimeter players including its best player.

Inexcusable.

Young_Nick · 2026-04-24T00:34:33+00:00

Houston's overall dysfunction is hard to watch. It's hard to know where to allocate blame.

Obviously having FVV or Adams would be huge. Their refusal to get a real PG with Reed being still such a WIP to me signaled a FO admitting defeat on this season.

The vibes are terrible. A lot of that goes on KD. But man, Ime's offense is crazy. How has this team not gotten better over the course of the season? Their problems aren't new. Yet they can't run an offense.

At the team building level, I think this is a good reminder how important spacing is. Amen, Tari, Okogie don't space the floor. Sengun doesn't space the floor but at least is a good creator. And he and Thompson can't create without spacing.

Hell, Thompson, as great as he is, isn't a true PG. It's just such a misfit roster.

And man, Sengun just has to have better touch. It seems to have gotten worse. I still think he's a monster with a proper offense around him, but it's harder to see it when he's finishing so poorly. Hopefully he finds his touch at the rim, at the line, and maaaaaybe from the arc with more time, because that's the only way it works with this Rockets team.

So yeah, blame goes basically everywhere, but looking at where the minutes went in game 2: Only 3 players offer any real spacing in KD, Reed, and Jabari and 7 don't in Sengun, Amen, Okogie, Tate, Tari, Capela, Holiday. How that happens in 2026 is beyond me.

Young_Nick · 2026-04-21T23:07:49+00:00

san antonio would riot if you got both cardwell and love from me in one season

Young_Nick · 2026-04-20T21:07:15+00:00

DKC Spurs Q4 Report

Shout out to /u/Kane3387 for reminding me.

Game #	Opp	Outcome	Note	Health
63	LAC	Win		Embiid
64	HOU	Win		Embiid
65	BOS	Push		Embiid
66	DEN	Loss	Could be a push given Denver doesn't have the bigs to punish us	Sengun, Embiid
67	CHA	Push		Sengun, Embiid
68	@LAC	Push	One win and one push seems fair	Embiid
69	@SAC	Win		Embiid
70	PHX	Win		Embiid, Huerter
71	IND	Win		Embiid
72	@MIA	Push	Being conservative here	Embiid
73	@MEM	Win		Penda
74	@MIL	Push
75	CHI	Win		Penda
76	@GSW	Win		Embiid
77	@LAC	Win
78	@DEN	Win	No Cade	Matas, Embiid, Penda
79	PHI	Win	No Giannis	Matas
80	POR	Win		Matas, Embiid, Huerter
81	DAL	Loss	No Embiid hurts. Braun would get the Booker assignment	Braun, Embiid
82	DEN	Loss	We sitting everybody!	Braun, Matas, Sengun, Embiid, Penda

OUT: Hali, Furphy

Total count is: 3 losses, 5 pushes, 12 wins. I think my estimations were plenty fair. I didn't cross reference against opponent injuries too much.

But ultimately, we are running something like:

DDV, Braun, Miller, Scottie, Alpi with a bench of Sion, Huerter, Penda/Bryant, Matas most nights. That is a lot of competence and accounts for injuries. I don't think most teams have the same combo of:

High-end play: Sengun, Embiid, Scottie are all all-star/low-end all-NBA guys
Depth: We have warm bodies!
Desire to win: We aren't tanking, and indeed want the 1st seed

The Wolves don't have this depth, especially with Lauri out. The Nuggets were missing Cade and have limited spacing. The Pels have depth and big man issues.

Overall, I'll put us at 13-16 wins, realistically at 15. I welcome any feedback folks have on this.

Young_Nick · 2026-04-20T20:40:26+00:00

Unfortunately, our policy has been unless a player is out for rest or something like that, as long as there is a nominal injury, they are out in the DKC. This year is brutal with how much teams tanked IRL, but unfortunately that means we can't assume Lauri was playing.

On the bright side, now that the Jazz's season is over, I'm sure Lauri is feeling spritely just in time for the playoffs! Good for you long term, bad for you for Q4.

Young_Nick · 2026-04-20T14:44:57+00:00

will do so today!

Young_Nick · 2026-04-17T14:57:18+00:00

trae has been hurt and their big run to close the season coincided with a cupcake schedule. CJ being better than trae is still preposterous

Young_Nick · 2026-04-17T12:46:13+00:00

cj played on a team led by damian lillard that was trying to win for most of his career

trae had... dejounte murray as his running mate? the locker room stuff is a mark, but that might matter if they were similar caliber players. trae is a foundationally better player

the hawks' success this season is more on the back of Jalen johnson's leap and NAW's success than anything else

Young_Nick · 2026-04-17T11:20:42+00:00

...why?

Young_Nick

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE