We’re not far away from mid-October and the start of the NBA season. At this point on the calendar I want to start dropping an NBA post at least every third day. I think I’ve almost seen enough college football and the NFL to get a pretty good feel about who’s going be left standing at the goal acheiving portion of the season.
For instance, Joe B and his Bengals better get their 0-2 act together this Sunday or it will be a cold, dark winter in Cincy football wise.
For instance, the SEC ain’t so bad this season primarily because the quarterback play in the league minus perhaps LSU is extremely ordinary. Georgia of course has defensive first round talent everywhere so they can maybe get away with this shortcoming. Maybe.
I think what I’d like to do on my blog this NBA basketball season is follow four teams primarily in the regular season from the Western Conference. These four teams will be the Golden State Warriors, the defending champ Denver Nuggets, the LA Lakers, and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
I’m just going to flow from team to team. This doen’t mean I think the Thunder are a top four team in the West, but it means I think their season will be interesting to observe and blog about without the fanboy bullshit you get on the Daily Thunder or blogs of that sort.
So this is my first entry of the basketball season with Pat Bev interviewing Draymond Green. The podcast covers Draymond’s new contract, the magic formula of the Warriors, why everyone hates Chris Paul, and why Draymond punched Jordan Poole and got Jordan’s very soft ass shipped to the Washington Wizards.
But more than that…this podcast is about the value of BBI or basketball IQ. It’s the only metric I’ll ever use on my blog…..my own metric which I use to evaluate limited players from Austin Reaves to Klay Thompson to Jamal Murray.
I’ve tweaked my metric to TSNS…Toughness, Smarts, Nasty, Soul of a player. How much and how badly do you want to win?
If you were to ask someone from the Thunder organization for the most intelligent takes…I would suggest Nick Collison be the teacher. In the history of the Thunder in Oklahoma City…I would grade Nick and Kevin as the two smartest players to play in Oklahoma City. Then maybe Derek Fisher. Then maybe Paul George, then Perk, and/or Carmelo or Russell on a calmer night (sigh). My take on James Harden has dropped dramatically these past two seasons.
Who are my five smartest players in the league currently? I’d go 1 LeBron, 2 KD, 3 Jimmy Butler, 4 Draymond, 5 Jrue Holiday, 6 Klay, 7 PJ Tucker, 8 Jamal Murray, 9 Austin Reaves, and 10 Lu Dort… if he’d remove some of the bad threes from his game.
Oklahoma City obviously isn’t a contender for the Western Conference…the other three teams are for certain. In Oklahoma City I’m looking at certain things…1 Chet Holmgren, 2 the Sixth Man and bench, 3 how much Josh Giddey improves his defense and perimeter defense.
And…what is the last piece for Sam Presti to put in place if it isn’t Josh Giddey?
If you want to learn the NBA game…I’d highly suggest this podcast because hate him or love him…Draymond Green is one tough, smart, nasty, soulful two-way basketball player.
Have a nice Week 4 college football week-end.
MJ