the jalen duren thing is weird…

People often talk about how some free agent or prospect “earned millions” by raising their perceived value playing their ass off through a series.

Which leads me to wonder — exactly how many tens of millions of dollars did Jalen Duren LOSE during the eight seconds you see below?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5waa0WrLhlk

the jalen duren thing is weird…

Just in: Detroit Pistons All-Defensive forward Ausar Thompson has reached agreement on a five-year, $155 million rookie-scale contract extension, sources tell ESPN.

Everyone insisted that Detroit would wait to resolve the Duren thing before extending Ausar. The fact that they extended Ausar first suggests things ain’t great with Duren’s camp.

Also, Brunson may have entered a Jordan-like space on offense. Even if you can keep him down for a while, he will eventually solve you and kick your ass.

Facts. Indiana with Thibs help was the only team that solved Brunson. Leon put in Brown and traded for Jose…full court ball pressure non stop fouling and harrasment problem solved.

Also, Brunson may have entered a Jordan-like space on offense. Even if you can keep him down for a while, he will eventually solve you and kick your ass. And so long as the team around him isn’t ravaged with injury…

Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

Cliched but it is very true. If you have good luck but you aren’t prepared to take advantage of it, you won’t benefit from it.

I thought that ESPN analysis of our prospects this season was pretty reasonable though,

The presence of luck doesn’t make luck the cause, and I think these analysts are being a little lazy: “we spotted traces of luck! Therefore we can move on.”

I think we were actually way more lucky in 2025. That team made the conference finals with a net rating of zero, and they played like three good games the whole playoffs.

All that luck didn’t seem to hurt us this year.

basically, saying it seems like we were extra lucky in terms of health and 3 point shooting defense…

2 key factors that could derail our championship defense…

I get that. But this is what I was theorizing about above.

We didn’t need that luck to win a title.

We needed it to win the most lopsided title in league history.

Take that luck away, we probably still win. Maybe we beat Philly in 6, Cleveland in 7, and the Spurs in 6.

It’s not like we were the Indiana pacers in 2025, who had the same shooting luck and a meager 2.0 net rating. Our margin was extraordinary, and I think it suggests we can win one without great luck, too.

The Knicks played 7 games this year in the playoffs that were decided by 10 points or less. They went 4-3 in those games. Of course they were 12-0 in games decided by 10 points or more. They were in every single game, and with a little bit better luck, could have gone 16-0. There was not one game in the entire run where they got handily outplayed, and there were many games where they simply demolished their opponents.