FW_Hoosier

1 hour ago, btroesch14 said:

Nowhere did I state that I’m more capable of Archie job than Archie is or know more than Archie does. I just wanted some people’s opinions on why we’re not recruiting a center for the 2021 class because will be thin at that spot if TJD goes to the NBA. 

I agree we’ll need some more size in ‘21 if TJD goes pro... Thompson and Duncomb as our only bigs will not even come close to cutting it in the Big Ten.  But there aren’t many freshmen bigs out there that are ready to come in and make a big impact right away.  I would assume Archie will target a transfer to provide some additional depth.

24 minutes ago, go_iu_bb said:

Leal and Galloway now around 120-130 depending on if it's 247 or 247 composite. They were around 100 before, I think.

Interesting that the composite has the top 5 recruits in the state listed as Jaden Ivey (75), D’Andre Davis (95), Nijel Pack (98), Leal (129), and Galloway (130)... I’m assuming Pack recently made a huge jump?

These rankings obviously aren’t the be all end all, and are probably even less accurate than usual given the circumstances.  Just weird to see Mr. Basketball not even ranked as a top 3 recruit in the state.  Wonder how many times that has happened?

17 hours ago, The Daily Hoosier said:

Junior season highlights for Duncomb

https://www.thedailyhoosier.com/iu-basketball-recruiting-2021-commit-logan-duncomb-junior-season-highlights/

This is the first highlight video of his I’ve been able to watch.  Wow, he’s a lot more mobile than I expected him to be.  Looks like he’ll definitely be able to play at either forward spot and has the potential to step out and hit a three, like others have mentioned.  Definitely has the look of one of those Wisconsin bigs that kills us every time... Excited to see him suit up for IU.

Nice pickup, seems like Duncomb was the center the staff had been prioritizing the most for 2021.  Also always great to steal a recruit away from the likes of Wisconsin, Iowa, and OSU... I’ll have to watch some highlight tapes.  Could be a great pairing with Kaufman in the ‘21 class.

39 minutes ago, iuthruandthru said:

As someone that went to IU and still lives in Btown the video saloon is a completely different place.  When I was undergrad we would go there to not hit the college bar scene and relax.  Seems when I have gone there over the last few years at the request of some younger friends or children of neighbors it seems to be a haven for millennials.  Definitely wasn’t the Vid I remember.

So you’re saying The Vid is worse than you remember because it used to be full of boomer/Gen X undergrads... and now it’s full of millennial undergrads?  Lol.  (Btw, undergrads are Gen Z now.  I’m a washed up millennial that used to hang out at The Vid five years ago.)

1 hour ago, bronkonagurski said:

Is the Video Saloon still there? That was my watering hole in my last couple of years at IU. Always followed by a trip to the Taco Bell afterwards. 

Loved playing darts and pool at The Vid.  As far as I know, Mike is in his zillionth year of being the bouncer there.

10 hours ago, Artesian_86 said:

Zion is legit........all due respect, but watching highlights from his first NBA game looked like he was playing in an All-Star game....San Antonio's 3 pt defense on him was putrid...

Watching those highlights from last night, my first thought was that Adam Silver made a call to Popovich before the fourth quarter and told him to stop playing defense on Zion... Sometimes NBA games like that are just too convenient, haha.

11 minutes ago, dbmhoosier said:

It’s not the fans he’s ever had a problem with.

So they say.

Bobby doesn’t know what year it is or how he got dressed this morning, but he still knows how to stick it to IU fans.  Lol.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/28450077/john-beilein-apologizes-cavs-says-meant-call-players-slugs-not-thugs

Wonder if Beilein will be looking for a soft landing spot in the college game this year?

Didn’t Romeo have a bunch of injuries when he was high school as well?  IIRC, that wrist injury happened at some point during his high school career, and UK fell out of the picture in his recruitment when he had a back(?) injury during some foreign tour with Cal for Team USA.

5 hours ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

It’s not just Durant that they lost, they lost basically their supporting crew, Livingston et al. 

Curry, as great as he is, needs space, he’s had trouble scoring this year without it. Klay is coming back after likely a missed year, after a major injury. Getting a lottery level forward is just more youth.

I think the warriors are done, as a contender. Look around them. Clippers are seriously deep and not going away. Denver is now a clear contender with a legit star and still young. Lakers for a few years. Rockets aren’t going away. Portland will crush them every chance they get. Jazz. 

Warriors are done 

They would definitely get beat by the Clippers and probably the Lakers, but I would take a healthy Warriors team with Steph, Klay, Draymond, and a top-5 pick forward over the Rockets, Trailblazers, Nuggets, and Jazz every time.  Those teams are pretenders.

2 hours ago, BobSaccamanno said:

That draft did not meet the hype.  You had Wiggins first, then Jabari Parker, then Embiid.  Embiid has turned out to be fantastic. But, the other two were so hyped and have not met expectations.  I recall that the draft that year was especially lauded for having the franchise player level talent.  Wiggins is erratic and plays inefficient, losing basketball.  

Parker was literally on the cover of SI in high school.   His recruitment was a frenzy.  To be fair, Parker may have been robbed by two knee injuries.  But, if we are being fair, he doesn’t play winning basketball either.  From what I’ve seen of him, he is awful on defense and he can’t shoot with range.  He’s on his fourth team.  Really, at Duke, he bombed there too and the defensive bugaboo reared it’s head then.  What really annoyed me about Parker was a quote where he said something to the effect that he didn’t need to expend energy on defense since that’s what he and other scorers do.  And that was maybe two years ago.  That’s toxic.  I hate to call him Michael Beasley since that’s a terrible insult and Beasley is a full on head case.

The moral is you never know what you’re getting when your team tanks.  That particular draft was supposed to have two saviors in it and it hasn’t materialized.  

Tbh, comparing Parker to Beasley might be an insult to Beasley.

25 minutes ago, Drroogh said:

Kind of a side light in the offseason, but my ever churning mind, thinking about the Memphis #1 recruiting class lead me to how much I loved watching Penny and others play. Started thinking about who was the GOAT in basketball! I quickly came up with my answer!

Who is your pick? Magic, one of my favorites! Jordan, Kareem, LeBron? I'm going to guess your answer is wrong!!!

Damon Bailey.

17 minutes ago, KDB said:

247 updated their 2020 rankings today.

Jordan entered the rankings at #85.

Ironic that he would probably end up the highest ranked recruit in the class if he commits.

44 minutes ago, 5fouls said:

Yeah.  I was aware of that.  It was an attempt at humor.

Edit.  Okay i now see that Hoopster fell for the fake Damon Bailey thing.  I guess that does make it funny after all.

Aren’t you banned?

After taking a look at that blogger’s profile, I don’t think he’s THAT Damon Bailey.

51 minutes ago, IndyResident16 said:

Which at the end of the day isn't the worst thing in the world, especially if you don't take recruiting rankings as gospel. There's always going to be 20-30 kids each class who are above the rest, but they likely aren't going to develop into 3-4 year upperclassmen. I guess I just don't see the difference in a player ranked 80th vs a player ranked 110th? I think once you get passed those top 20-25 kids, you're really just recruiting players who fit your system. A player ranked 110th may be a great shooter and the missing piece to your team. A player ranked 80th may be a great athlete who can get up and down the court and is a good fit for a team who runs a press defense for 40 minutes. The #100 to me is all arbitrary. I haven't seen any evidence that a player ranked 99 is better than a player ranked 101. They're all subjective.

This post made me curious... Of the 14 players who averaged more than 10 mpg on our last two conference championship teams, only 6 were consensus top 100 recruits (Watford, Zeller, Ferrell, Williams, Johnson, Bryant).  This isn’t including Blackmon, who didn’t play for most of the 2015-2016 season — even including him, you get 7 out of 15.  Interesting.

48 minutes ago, Coach Robby said:

I totally get where you’re coming from, but the priority kids have had offers for nearly 3 months now. Can’t wait on em forever and not actively recruit others. 

For sure, he has to keep recruiting.  But getting strung along by our top targets while we toss out a bunch of offers to “diamonds in the rough” seems like a movie we’ve seen before.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m kind of getting Crean flashbacks with our approach to this 2020 class.

1 hour ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

Early ranking of NBA teams after all the trades, by espn:

1. Bucks

2. Nuggets

3. Clippers

4. Sixers

5. Rockets

6. Lakers

7. Celtics

8. Portland

9. Jazz

10. Raptors

11. GS

12. Nets

13. Spurs

14. Heat

15. Pacers....

Thoughts? The West is insane and hard to predict, but imo Jazz are too low, Rockets are too high, Celtics probably too high, Pacers are very much overlooked, Heat are too high, Raps are too high withou Kawhi.

Clippers should be #1 by a landslide.

4 hours ago, FKIM01 said:

I said as a joke earlier in this thread to pair Westbrook with Jimmy Butler and burn down the franchise.  I'm not so sure that isn't more likely than success for that pairing.  Yikes.

Eh, I think that’s a little overblown.  I’m definitely not a big Westbrook fan, and you obviously can’t win a title with him as your best player, but he’s still an elite scorer/playmaker.  And yeah, Jimmy is a tool, but he came to the Sixers halfway through the season and they came pretty close to knocking off the champs in the second round.  They’re probably the two most competitive players in the game, so I think they’d respect each other.

If I was building a team, I definitely wouldn’t choose to build it around Butler and Westbrook, but now that the Heat have already signed Butler, I think it makes sense.  Who else are the Heat going to get to pair with Butler that will give them a chance to advance in the playoffs?

So I was debating this with some friends today.  Does trading for Westbrook (at the right price of course) make sense for the Heat?  My friends acted like I was crazy for thinking so.   I get it... 4 years $170M left on his contract, shot terribly last year (.428/.290/.656... gross), etc., etc.

But the way I look at it, why not?  The Heat have already pushed all their chips in on winning now by signing Butler to his own massive contract, which will hurt the value of their first round picks.  They don’t have their 2021 or 2023 draft picks, depending on their draft position.  They’re pretty much capped out for the next three seasons.  Why not trade Dragic, Winslow, some other scrub, and a protected first rounder for Westbrook?  (Depending on the market, they might even be able to get a better deal than that).  Westbrook is still a top 15-20 player at worst for the next two seasons, and I think they’re a top 4 team in the East with him and Butler.  Sure, they won’t win a title, but they’ll be fighting just to make the playoffs over the entire course of Butler’s contract with the roster as it currently stands.  I think it makes sense.

1 hour ago, BobSaccamanno said:

Regarding the 76ers, their moves are fascinating. Horford with Embiid should work great. Not only can both play off each other (they can both post and stretch) but Horford can give quality when Embiid is on the bench which was a real problem last year.  They paid something like an eye popping $180 million for Tobias Harris who’s a quality starter.  Yes, they lost Butler but Josh Richardson has been very highly regarded and probably underrated.  They do lose shooting at the guard position which causes problems with stretching the defense out.  So, all told, we don’t know how it will work, whether it’s neutral or a plus.  I think the straw that will stir the drink is Simmons.  Right now, it’s a real handicap that the defense can lay off of him.  If he can meet expectations, that will be the key point for them IMO.

The playoffs in the East may be a flat out war next year, which is good for the game. 

The interesting thing to me about the Sixers now is just how huge their starting lineup will be.  They’re going to start Simmons (6’10), Richardson (6’6), Harris (6’9), Horford (6’10), and Embiid (7’0).  That is just an absolutely massive lineup.  The lack of shooting and depth will be a problem, but they will be pretty scary on defense.

1 hour ago, IU Scott said:

I guess we just will disagree on this one.  Also you can move up far enough in the first round with second round picks to get a quality pick.  to me anything after the top 12-15 those picks are just not worth trading up for.

Translation:

“I am getting absolutely destroyed by facts and logic, so ‘agree to disagree’ is the only response I can come up with.”