Ben

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Ben

Ben

@_BenBecker

Putting the mental in judgmental. You're only young once, but you can be immature forever.

The seventh planet Joined Nisan 2014
926 Following842 Followers
Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
Two straight Phoenix losses would give the Wizards a few more ping-pong balls in the draft lottery thanks to the pick swap DC acquired in the Bradley Beal trade. Let’s go Blazers!
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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
Adam Silver should have this tweet blown up and mounted on a mural in his and executive in the NBA's offices. This should guide every strategy discussion and decision he makes for the product.
Sam Quinn@SamQuinnCBS

I think an advantage baseball had was that, for a lot of structural reasons, it was the first sport to optimize for winning over entertainment, feel the backlash, and then let that guide them in fixing stuff their fans didn’t like. Now the NBA is where MLB was a decade ago.

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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
@JonesOnTheNBA The @SamQuinnCBS point (that @SherwoodStrauss brought to my attention) about baseball being a decade ahead of the NBA in terms of fixing the problems that quant/optimization caused The Product is spot on.
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Nate Jones
Nate Jones@JonesOnTheNBA·
This wasn’t as much of a problem in the NBA until quants took over front offices. Front offices all have the blueprint that if you’re not good enough, just fight for best odds in draft. And it’s even worse in good drafts (like this one)
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Nate Jones
Nate Jones@JonesOnTheNBA·
You’re wasting your time trying to explain to people why getting rid of the draft is a better alternative. Despite there being a cap, most people on here are convinced that the Lakers and Knicks would get every prospect out of school. 🤦🏽‍♂️🤣
Haralabos Voulgaris@haralabob

In 2019 they modified the lottery rules and that was an abject failure as well, it clearly made tanking worse. The bottom line is the draft and lottery are flawed at the root. If you were serious, you’d scrap the draft entirely, make every rookie a free agent, remove max salaries, and enforce a true hard cap. But they'll likely never do that, nor will they go with the wheel so instead they are fixated on how they can make sure teams don't tank their way out of the play-in to get a better chance at a top 3 pick which tells you all you need to know about the product and the people who run and own these teams. Think about how crazy it is that people would actually thinking about losing games on purpose to avoid playing in the playoffs. The league has had two major innovations of late - one of them was "The In Season Tournament" and the other is a Playin that is so revolutionary that people are convinced teams will tank their way out of it if it means they'll have a better than 2% chance to draft a star rookie. The league is cooked. Lets say they solve tanking at the very bottom, whats next? Apathy. What incentive will a middle of the road team have to compete every night over 82 games? They won't be in the playoff hunt they'll be guaranteed some lotto % so what incentives will they have to actually compete? I'm not sure anyone in the league office or even ownership has thought about that, but they should.

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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
@JonesOnTheNBA And monetizable in a way that FA playing out over twitter is not.
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Nate Jones
Nate Jones@JonesOnTheNBA·
I personally think an annual free agency convention that’s live like the draft where both incoming college and international players and vet NBA players all come to get recruited and pitched by teams would be much more entertaining and appealing than the draft and current FA
Nate Jones@JonesOnTheNBA

And although there wouldn’t be a draft anymore, I would love for it to be replaced by a live free agency convention that includes new rookie entrants. New deals are negotiated live on TV. Teams pitching incoming rookies and free agents. Would be chaos and great TV!

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Ben Becker
Ben Becker@BMB0724·
@HPbasketball Unfortunately that’s the internet. I live in the Denver area and wear OKC stuff around coworkers and we have plenty of reasonable conversations about the teams, SGA, Jokic, etc.
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Hardwood Paroxysm
Hardwood Paroxysm@HPbasketball·
I wish we could get to a conversational place where we can be middle. The DeRozan thing is a good example. DDR is WIDELY known as one of the best PEOPLE in the league, teammates love him. The dude's an automatic bucket for 15 years, has been in a bunch of big playoff games, is one of the best mid-range players of this era. The impact stuff is legit. That's a valid criticism. But also, as much as I value winning, it's not EVERYTHING. Longevity X Consistency matters and it matters a HELL of a lot more to the players than we give it credit for. And I'm the guy who called him Costo Kobe!
Ben Becker@BMB0724

@HPbasketball That’s fair. And I agree with this assessment mostly. I’m just saying the people over inflating are responding to people exaggerating how good they’d be without him. It’s definitely a middle ground.

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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
@fastbreakonomik Would be so hilarious if they brought everyone back.
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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
The Wizards are really going to secure no worse than the #5 pick. It's been rough, man, but when you look at the big picture of development and acquiring Trae/AD for so little, it's been a really successful season.
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jansjay
jansjay@jansjay·
If we are in an NBA world where acquiring Trae Young and Anthony Davis still in their primes w/o giving up any noteworthy assets makes one the 2nd worst NBA GM of the season then I feel we’ve lost the plot. I got a lot of respect for those guys but that’s an outrageous take.
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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
Just 41. Long runway. Nice.
Wizards Film Room@KevinFolliNBA

Per @JakeLFischer, the Wizards could target former Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins if they are to part ways with Brian Keefe. Jenkins, who is a Mike Budenholzer disciple, is also a strong candidate for the Bucks job. He’s strong with player development, defense and led the Grizzlies to multiple 50-win seasons. Would be a solid hire imo.

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Bryson Akins
Bryson Akins@BrysonAkinsNBA·
@_BenBecker I’m also talking about his time in OKC as well. He had the opportunity to make the finals multiple times with KD and Russ. Never did. He had PG and Russ, never got past the first round.
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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
If Billy Donovan doesn't take the UNC job, he's worth watching for DC. He overlapped with both Dawkins and Winger in OKC and could absolutely coach a team with young developmental talent and established guys like Trae/AD.
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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
@BrysonAkinsNBA I don't much care that he hasnt had playoff success in years. The Wizards aren't ready for "playoff success." The need to compete consistently. Also, his lack of postseason success is heavily attributable to the rosters he's been given in Chicago.
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Bryson Akins
Bryson Akins@BrysonAkinsNBA·
@_BenBecker Wrote about it the other day and I think he should be the last option. Think he’s a fine head coach, but don’t think you see much difference between him and Keefe the first season. He has not had playoff success in years. That’s a big turn off for me.
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Ben
Ben@_BenBecker·
@jansjay He's a good coach. He's also 60 -- not their Daigneault/Hardy/Stevens, so it will be interesting to see what direction they take. Folks have to keep in mind that they're taking a step forward but just one, but not flooring the gas.
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@JonesOnTheNBA @SamQuinnCBS @SherwoodStrauss @BMB0724 @HPbasketball @fastbreakonomik @jansjay @BrysonAkinsNBA