The Ordinary Singaporean

Musings from Singapore

Category: Basketball

Basketball! It’s back! (2019-20)

October 22, 2019 /

I don’t know what to do with my hands!

You’d think that, after about ten years of following the NBA, and actively writing (like, two or three pieces a week) about it for a couple years – shout out, The Pick and Roll – I’d be pleasantly looking forward to the new NBA season, but not necessarily overly-excited or anything.

You’d be dead wrong. I’m so stoked for it all to begin again, man. I can’t feel my face.

Why? You all know why

My reasons for excitement are the same as with just about anyone else. There are several good teams with reasonable claims to make it to the Conference Finals, and there’s every chance we get a Finals match up that we’ve never seen before. There is legitimate uncertainty (in a good way) again.

Can LeBron James and Anthony Davis string together enough healthy games to push the L.A. Lakers into the playoffs for the first time since 2013? How will a L.A. Clippers team that’s expected to at least make the West Finals respond to this newfound pressure and expectations?

I’m just gonna leave this here.

How many games before everyone forgets the Cleveland Cavaliers actually exist (I give it five games)? How many 3:30 am practices before Heat staff tell Jimmy Butler to quit acting hard and to come in at 10:00 am like normal folk?

I’ll never stop making fun of Jimmy Butler.

There’s just so much to get hyped about. I’m looking forward to the games, to the Zach Lowe pieces (serious or otherwise), to NBA Desktop, to my maiden attempt at Fantasy Basketball.

This is my team. Their name: The RockEm Siakam Robots.

And of course, I’m looking forward to seeing my Dallas Mavericks.

Let’s go Mavs

I wasn’t pleased with Dallas’ off-season dealings – they once again seemed like they were late to the party, missing out on multiple free agent targets and looking like fools in the process.

But for all of that, I’m still really excited to see how this team plays. Luka Dončić in year two will be a blast, and Kristaps Porzingis looked pretty good in preseason.

More of this, please.

Jalen Brunson is well on his way to being a larger, better J.J. Barea, and I hope we hang onto him forever. Maxi Kleber and Dwight Powell are underrated, top-shelf role players. Delon Wright will get a proper swing at a starting role, Seth Curry is back to light nets on fire with his shooting. Justin Jackson could grow into a quality wing.

The Accountant, Ryan Broekhoff, already started tallying the numbers in August.

I feel like making the playoffs is a realistic goal. The immediate post-Dirk era might not involve title contention, but it’s still a future worth caring about. Let’s go Mavs!

Predictions

I’ll end off with some picks.

MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo
DPOY: Rudy Gobert
ROY: Zion Williamson
COY: Quin Snyder (I think Rick Carlisle stands a chance too)
6MOY: Lou Williams
MIP: Anfernee Simons
Leading scorer: Stephen Curry

Eastern Conference Finals: Milwaukee Bucks over Philadelphia Sixers
Western Conference Finals: L.A. Clippers over Denver Nuggets

NBA Finals: L.A. Clippers over Milwaukee Bucks

Most disappointing team: Brooklyn Nets
Most surprising team: Chicago Bulls

The NBA is finally back, guys.

The Toronto Raptors’ offseason brings up questions about fandom

July 25, 2019 /

The journey and the titles *both* matter.

It seems that any NBA fan would accept the end result of the Toronto Raptors’ one-season fling with Kawhi Leonard if it happened for their team.

A title in the bag, and that’s all he wrote. Kawhi is now on the LA Clippers, and he made his decision late enough in free agency that the Raptors didn’t have any real options to reload the team for a title defense.

(I mean, they’ve only added Stanley Johnson, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, and Cameron Payne, the latter ‘good’ enough to be playing in Summer League at 25 years old.)

I’m not insinuating that Kawhi meant to do that; it just took time to make the Paul George deal work, that’s all. But given that it’s left the team as the lamest duck title defenders since the 2011-12 Dallas Mavericks, it’s pretty amazing that there hasn’t been much, if any, unhappiness with Kawhi.

And we all know why, right? Larry O’B.

If Masai Ujiri’s gamble didn’t end with the title, would Kawhi still be as beloved? Would losing in the second round to the Philadelphia 76ers in seven games have been enough? Or did they have to make it to the Finals? What was the minimum acceptable result?

We’ll never know for sure, but for the first time ever, we have a player leaving the defending champions on his own accord, and leaving them much poorer for it. And no one, not even Raptors fans, dislike him for doing so.

To be clear, I feel the same way. It’s just a little weird to me, is all.

I believe that this is us fans really internalizing everything the players keep saying in interviews (whether they all mean it or not). ‘Championship or bust’ is the general mindset these guys always espouse, and even though there are more than enough high-profile cases that prove otherwise (ahem, Carmelo Anthony), we still believe them.

Even to the extent of allowing our teams to be used as disposable vessels to get there.

Ask any fan, of any team or sport, what being a fan is about. It won’t be long before something along the lines of ‘sticking with them through thick and thin’ comes up. Thanks to the cyclical nature of sports, today’s world champion will inevitably become tomorrow’s basement dweller, sooner or later.

It’s a reflection on life itself. We have good times, we have bad times, and some of the best experiences are predicated on going through some tough periods. They go hand in hand.

It’s why we fall in love with flawed or limited players, and remember specific games during otherwise unsuccessful seasons. And all of these add up to an organic, (extremely) long-form narrative that makes us fans.

Because we can relate to that struggle for happiness, or that feeling of looking over one’s shoulder for the next catastrophe to come.

For Toronto fans, they have had all of that. The highs of Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady gave way to the lows of, um, Jason Kapono, before the Kyle Lowry-DeMar DeRozan teams flattered to deceive multiple years in a row.

And yet, Kawhi’s one and only season immediately trumped all of that. DeRozan, deified in the city around this time last year, has suddenly become that little bit less godlike.

Maybe both the journey, as a whole, *and* a title, are what matter. They go hand in hand. Maybe the players themselves are merely secondary details in the grand scheme of things, no matter how much we stan for individuals.

And maybe realizing that would reduce the hatred we dump on players requesting a trade or leaving in free agency, as long as they do it in good taste (ahem, Anthony Davis).

After all, they’re looking out for themselves. Same as the rest of us.

I was on a Mavs podcast

June 27, 2019 /

Talking offseason, beers, and the genesis of my fandom.

In late April, I got the opportunity to be a guest on the Hoops And Hefeweizens podcast.

Hosted by the good dudes Alex and Ruben, and joined by Jeevan, a fellow Singaporean MFFL (Mavs Fan For Life), we talked about how we became Dallas Mavericks fans, our thoughts on the offseason, and our favourite beers.

Check out the specific episode here.

Please listen to it, I’ll love you for it ♥️

(P.S. This was recorded in late April, so my opinions – especially on Kemba joining the Mavs – may have changed a little)

The Dallas Mavericks: Eight years after the title

June 14, 2019 /

It could’ve been better, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Eight years ago today, my team, the Dallas Mavericks, won the NBA title.

Since then, we haven’t even won a single playoff series. I watched as we wasted the last of Dirk Nowitzki’s remaining productive years, the roster a revolving door of just-decent players (Monta Ellis, Harrison Barnes) at best, and old and/or busted ones (Deron Williams, Amar’e Stoudemire, Rajon Rondo) at worst.

Even our most exciting free agency capture ever was perma-crocked, with my final feelings on Chandler Parsons that of relief that we didn’t give him another big contract and instead let the Memphis Grizzlies do it. This, coming from someone excited enough at the time to describe the team’s pursuit of him as “addictive”.

It was a rather mediocre existence the Mavs led from 2012 to 2017. The team always flattered to deceive, putting together teams that looked good on paper (remember O.J. Mayo?) but which never went anywhere. We built players like Al-Farouq Aminu and Seth Curry up, only to see them leave as soon as free agency hit. Our trades were either inconsequential or actively hurt us. The Lamar Odom and Rajon Rondo transactions essentially snuffed out all hope of a contending team in Dirk’s last few seasons.

I loved Rondo before he came to Dallas. Now? FOH.

As far as league-wide attention went, we were pretty much non-existent. I never stopped supporting the team and I still regularly watched Dallas games, but I admit that my enthusiasm waned a bit.

(Luckily, I was assigned the Andrew Bogut beat in 2015-16 for The Pick and Roll. Got to watch a lot of good and fun basketball thanks to that.)

We kept trading away draft picks, and were hardly bad enough to get really high selections anyway. This meant that, for a good long while, friggin’ Justin Anderson was the only glimmer of youthful hope we had.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the dude – he seems like a bright and positive young man. But a franchise-changing talent he is not.

Dennis Smith Jr. then came along, but the obvious flaws in his game tempered any high expectations fans might have had. It may be a bit harsh to say of someone who just completed his second pro season, but DSJ is still very much more ‘potential’ than ‘valuable contributor’.

Here’s where I thank Giannis Antetokounmpo for becoming the superstar he is today.

Mark Cuban nixed general manager Donnie Nelson’s suggestion to pick Giannis in the 2013 NBA Draft, all to save money to chase Dwight Howard.

Jesus Christ.

Thankfully, that chicken coop’s worth of eggs on his face meant that he shut up in 2018 and empowered Nelson to go ahead and trade up to select Luka Dončić. And oh my god what a refreshing blast of cool air it’s been to witness the birth of Dončić’s NBA career on the team I support.

Dončić is a star in every way: he puts up numbers, he hits buzzer-beaters, he’s getting praise from veterans, and he’s inspiring memes:

Credit: Reddit

What’s more: not only is he a good player, he’s a fun player. And having a young and truly exciting player who’s a perfect fit for the modern game means that the Dallas Mavericks are relevant again. We are finally worth a damn after so many years.

Of course, there are still many question marks about the future. Can Luka continue to develop, or is this more or less all he is? How healthy is Kristaps Porziņģis, and are his off-court issues for real? And even if these two guys come good, will the front office be able to maximize their talents with a great supporting cast or a third star?

I’ll tell you hwat though: these are great problems to have. I can’t emphasize enough how much fun and how energizing this past season was to experience, even with Dirk retiring at the end of it. Luka’s just that damn good, and the team has a chance to be special again.

And after eight years of total irrelevance, a chance is all I need.

That’s just the essence of fandom, isn’t it? Sticking with a team through its low points just makes the good times that much better.

For all my talk of irrelevance, I guess the last few years really weren’t useless after all. Much like how all of Dirk’s troubles made the 2011 win so much sweeter for him, perhaps all this time spent waiting will lead to something special.

Eight years on, I can dream again.

Cooling the flames of debate: Fewer hot takes, please

June 3, 2019 /

Think more, talk less. Or talk a lot, but think even more. You get what I mean.

The Ringer is great. It’s one of my daily go-to websites for basketball and pop culture news and discussions. My favourite writer works for them, and I also listen to many of their podcasts.

They annoyed me recently though. And it’s because of this:

Specifically, this episode of their Group Chat NBA podcast. Even more specifically, it was Chris Ryan, one of the two people on this episode, who annoyed me.

But this isn’t a rant about The Ringer or the Group Chat podcast or Chris Ryan. It’s a rant against the normalization of ‘hot take’ culture.

A hot take is, as Wikipedia defines it, “a piece of deliberately provocative commentary that is based almost entirely on shallow moralizing, usually written on tight deadlines with little research or reporting, and even less thought.”

(We all kinda know what a hot take is, but in the interest of being exact, I looked up the above definition. It’s a little harsh in describing my annoyance with Ryan’s statements, but I guess it’ll do.)

So what did Ryan say that triggered me? There were two things, actually:

1. “I think most people would agree, [Kawhi’s] the best basketball player on the planet” (50:48)

I gotta break out good ol’ Vault Boy here:

Justin Verrier, the other podcast host, goes on to say that maybe only Anthony Davis compares in terms of ability to affect the many areas of a basketball game. This helps to frame the discussion: they’re ‘only’ talking about modern-day players.

So we’re just forgetting players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, LeBron James?

What the hell does ‘modern-day’ even mean anyway? For example, what version of LeBron counts? Are we talking about the current, slightly hobbled version of LeBron, or is his career over the last decade being taken into consideration?

You. Can’t. Make. Such. Statements. Based. Off. Of. One. Playoff. Run.

And sure, playoff games count more, etc. But it’s ridiculous to throw out a whole season (and a couple rounds of the playoffs!) of Giannis and Durant dominance in favour of ONE brilliant playoff run by Kawhi.

I’m loving Kawhi’s play, but statements like the one Ryan offered up, without enough thought and/or context provided, are just inflammatory by nature. In Singaporean parlance, it just serves to stir shit. There’s too much recency bias at play.

2. “The one thing that’s kinda cool about the way they do the FA Cup in England… is that, for the opening rounds, basically the kids play” (56:19)

This is from Ryan’s discussion about introducing a knockout cup competition, much like those in European football, to the NBA. This is to give teams who aren’t realistic challengers for the Larry O’Brien trophy something to play for.

I highlighted this one sentence, but really I have a bone to pick with several things he says.

To be fair, he makes some good suggestions, such as the winners getting extra cap space or draft considerations. It injects excitement and stirs interest in fans of teams like the Charlotte Hornets or my Dallas Mavericks.

But there are so many nuances he misses out in his proposal that I can’t take it seriously.

To address the highlighted sentence: only the biggest teams such as the Manchester clubs, Liverpool, and Chelsea play their youngsters and reserves, because they’re stretched thin with fixtures across up to four different competitions at any one time. European tournaments and the league take precedence because of the prestige and money.

Teams lower down the table or in the lower divisions are actually likely to throw their best lineups out there in what is usually their best hope of winning some major silverware or at least getting in the headlines with a giant-killing or two.

And besides, football team rosters are much, much larger than NBA teams’. NBA teams would have to expand their rosters considerably to make competing in such a cup competition any sort of worthwhile endeavour. Otherwise, you get key role players like Shaun Livingston and Fred VanVleet putting in heavy minutes during the regular season. What would that do to rotations and these players’ ability to contribute in the playoffs?

Expanding roster sizes brings its own set of trickle down effects and side effects that have to be addressed, such as salary cap structure, quality of play, and G-League assignments, among many, many others.

All this to ‘singe people’s eyebrows off’ and to have LeBron in a knockout tournament because it’s ‘fucking sick’ (Ryan’s words). Maybe think for a second before asking for things now now now because we gotta go to Mount Splashmore right now.

The lack of attention paid to the nuances of both topics was disappointing, placing simplicity ahead of accuracy for the sake of making bold statements. But the biggest issue I have is actually how matter-of-fact Ryan made them out to be.

He speaks with the confidence of an expert, but either doesn’t know about or leaves out important details. Regarding the second point, for example, any casual fan who doesn’t know much about European football (understandable, considering it’s a basketball podcast) may be misinformed.

The thing is, I don’t necessarily think he’s doing it on purpose, and that’s the scary part. We should all be more mindful about the words that we choose to speak and the ideas they represent.

Hot take culture is fun, but can be damaging. Thankfully, we’re just talking about sports here, but get too used to it and it could spill over into more serious domains.

Our language shapes the way we perceive reality, so the least we could do is to think a bit before we say anything.

The Golden State Warriors: Why the hate?

May 27, 2019 /

Maybe hating on the Warriors is its own form of bandwagon-ism.

Thanks to Kawhi Leonard’s magnificent efforts, we have a new challenger from the Eastern Conference to face the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.

Just about everyone is looking forward to a Toronto Raptors win, a byproduct of the hate for the Warriors that came to life as soon as Kevin Durant made his decision to play in the Bay Area.

And yeah, I get it. Most people tend to pull for the underdog, and I’m no different. The Raptors have never even been to the championship round before, and having them around is just – put simply – refreshing.

As someone who consumes (and writes) NBA content, it also opens up so many new discussion points. Hell, just typing ‘the Toronto Raptors are in the NBA Finals’ is kinda fun!

But therein lies the difference. I like having the Raptors at this stage, and it would certainly be cool if they could win it all. But that’s me wanting the Raptors to win, not wanting the Warriors to lose. There’s a distinction there.

Why the hate for Golden State?

It’s not even about having a non-Warriors champ this year. As a Dallas Mavericks fan, the only team I really didn’t want to win was the Houston Rockets. Anyone else would’ve been alright or great by me, including Golden State.

I’d say that this is largely down to the fact that they’ve played pretty aesthetically-pleasing basketball all along. Even before the recent throwback to the pre-Durant days (which has brought up all kinds of ‘aRe gOlDeN sTaTe BeTtEr WiThOuT kEvIn DuRaNt???’ hot takes), they’ve always been fun to watch.

(For the record, as ESPN’s Zach Lowe has written, the Warriors are a championship-level team without Durant; with him, they are nigh invincible. So, the answer is no. The Warriors are objectively not better without KD.)

How could you truly dislike a team that entertains like the Warriors do?

I guess the hate stems from how they’ve made the season a journey with an inevitable end the past few years? But take a step back and think about it: It’s only been five years of GSW in the Finals.

Of that five, they lost one after being up 3-1, and were the darlings of the basketball world for the first title win. So, people are getting mad over just three years of dominance stemming from the smartest team building and fluid basketball this side of the San Antonio Spurs.

Come on, man.

Maybe it’s because I have a higher tolerance for periods of dominance, coming from a childhood of following football (soccer for any Americans in the audience). Football is a sport defined by whole decades of super-dynasties, from the Liverpool teams of the ’60s to the ’80s, to Manchester United in the ’90s and 2000s, and the ongoing virtual monopolies in Germany’s Bundesliga and France’s Ligue Un.

What I’m saying is, it could be so much worse! I drifted away from football and fell in love with basketball largely due to the existence of a salary cap.

(And, you know, Dirk. Of course.)

A salary cap means that no team can ever pull a Paris Saint-Germain and ensure a title every year. It means that even the very best teams in the NBA break up after two to three years as costs begin to outweigh production.

GSW has done a great job working within the rules – why are we hating on smart and ambitious management?

I hope that NBA fans can look forward to the Finals this season in a positive way. The hate for the Warriors is unwarranted.

Root for the Raptors, or root for Golden State, whichever team you prefer. Just make sure you’re cheering for someone to win, and not for someone to lose.

Zion Williamson on the New Orleans Pelicans is dead boring

May 16, 2019 /

Let’s gear up for another few years of mismanaging a superstar, I guess.

So, the 2019 edition of the NBA Draft Lottery has concluded.

As a Dallas Mavericks fan that had more or less given up on keeping our pick from the beginning, I am virtually a neutral in looking at this lottery. So I’m not being sour or trying to drop a hot take when I say the New Orleans Pelicans getting the top pick and likely choosing Zion Williamson in the upcoming draft is probably the most boring possible result from the night’s proceedings.

You know why? Because Anthony Davis. Because of how they tried and failed to build around Davis for so many years.

I’m not at all condoning Davis’ behaviour in trying to force a trade out of New Orleans this past season, but you can at least see why he felt it might be necessary to do so. And what has changed with the Pelicans to assure that they won’t mess it up with another No.1 pick again?

Zion Williamson is one of the most exciting draft prospects in recent history, and we’re probably going to see a rehash of the botched Anthony Davis era, ON THE SAME TEAM NO LESS.

And therein lies my personal dissatisfaction with the lottery results. From a neutral POV, Zion on the New York Knicks or the Phoenix Suns or the LA Lakers would’ve been infinitely more interesting, even if I don’t feel like any of those clubs remotely deserve him.

Any of those alternatives would’ve made for a fresh set of stories and angles to follow.

Well, this was interesting at least.

Still, the Pelicans definitely deserve Zion, after Davis decided to shit all over the franchise (and his own standing in basketball fans’ eyes). They needed the good vibes, and got them. But their team is still the not-good-enough mess it has been for the past few years, and new GM David Griffin is the only hope that they’ll do things right this time.

Who knows? He did help bring the Cleveland Cavaliers their first ever title. So it could work out.

But right now, man… it all just looks so disappointingly boring to me.

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