Igno-Bot 3000: Mad Dog is an absolute piece of shit, but the NBA really needs to better way to address load management. On any given night there are not many competitive games due to injuries or load management. The product is suffering. I don’t blame teams and players for taking care of themselves given the circumstances, but the schedule is too packed – they need to really think about shortening the schedule and then consider how to disincentivize teams from resting players when they’re healthy.

I agree and it goes both for teams load-managing stars as well as teams tanking. There are solutions.

vs load-managing:
1) Higher ranked teams not only get home court advantage, they get an extra video replay every game.
2) Higher ranked team gets to take out the ball to start every quarter in the playoffs.
3) Home court advantage becomes 5-2 instead of 4-3.

vs tanking:
1) non-playoff team with the best record gets the most ping-pong balls and the worst team gets the least.
2) All teams get a share of bonus money to distribute to players.

(ex: The share is a multiple of the number of team wins. All teams kick in an equal amount. For simplicity sake, lets say the amount is 100K per win. Every team kicks in 4.1M that comes off the cap. A 41 win team gets 4.1M which is divided equally to all players based on days on roster. For a 15-man roster that’s $273.3M per player. Win 60 games, the amount per player is 400K per player. Win 15 games and it’s 100K).

Anyone have any further thoughts on this guy? Apparently, he was suspended for getting into it with his coach, which is why he’s available to come here.

sight unseen on mister mike james – but, i’ll put my money on thibs…

Alan: I was about to come here to say we should kick us some tires. His NCAA 3PT accuracy hasn’t translated to the NBA yet, but the idealized version of him would be a pretty damn good for for this roster. He probably won’t get there, but what’s one roster spot to find out?

I say bring him in, but there’s a reason he’s available. His defense is supposedly atrocious. For a young-ish guy we could potentially develop longterm, why not?

Huh. I know everyone is more interested in his brother in the draft, but is he worth kicking the tires on?

I was about to come here to say we should kick us some tires. His NCAA 3PT accuracy hasn’t translated to the NBA yet, but the idealized version of him would be a pretty damn good for for this roster. He probably won’t get there, but what’s one roster spot to find out?

The Celtics are waiving Moe Wagner to create roster space for Jabari Parker, sources tell @TheAthletic @Stadium. Wagner has averaged nearly six points and three rebounds this season, and was productive in his starts in Washington prior to being traded.

Huh. I know everyone is more interested in his brother in the draft, but is he worth kicking the tires on?

It’s one thing when an organization pushes it on players, like the Spurs. The Nets, though, have taken it to a new level. Kyrie and Durant treat work as optional, and went so far as to get a good coach fired bc he disagreed with them. Fuck those guys. They deserve the criticism.

One point guard on their radar is a longtime European standout, Mike James, who has played the last two seasons for CSKA Moscow, shooting over 40-percent from 3-point range.

Anyone have any further thoughts on this guy? Apparently, he was suspended for getting into it with his coach, which is why he’s available to come here.

ptmilo: i know an expert who is convinced that excessive specializing in certain sports at too young an age is a contributing factor for increased acl risk later on.

I’ve heard this too. It’s repetitive training of certain groups of muscles that lead to imbalances.

I recall talking to someone who mentioned cornerbacks have a different injury profile because they practice backpedaling way more than other pro athletes. Never checked if it’s true but seems relevant here.

As they train their muscles to fire with more and more force, the things that are not trainable (tendons, menisci, ligaments, etc) are failing.

Talking about excessive training or specialization at too young an age seem like odd hypotheses when PED use both explains the kinds of injuries sustained and can be traced fairly clearly over the same timeline in another sport, baseball, where certain players known to have used PEDs experienced similar non-muscular damage.