Ben Coneybeare

3) there is something there with Derik Queen, was not on my radar at all but will def keep my eye on him
4) though it pains me to say, Trey Murphy has regressed and it might be best to move on from him

Thoughts on Hawks-Pels from last night:

1) the Pels are probably the worst finishing team in the league when Zion is out
2) the previous coaching staff did not do a good job - way to many late clock heaves and getting caught in transition

Right now, I’d only say Hellebuyck, Vasilevskiy and Shesterkin have been clearly better than Lukas Dostal since the start of last season

A Ducks-Knights playoff series would feed families

Funny how as soon as Anze Kopitar announces his retirement, Leo Carlsson instantly becomes his reincarnation

California can’t be without an elite playmaking and defensive centre it would seem

2010 - Gus Johnson

Some of these inclusions were clearly pushed over the line by college careers but I think the Hall gets to balance wrong on that

2016 - Ming - reached a near Hall of Fame level at times but not for anywhere close to long enough

2014 - Richmond - slightly less impressive Tim Hardaway

2013 - King - similar situation to Grant Hill

2012 - Wilkes and Sampson - prime examples of the NBA’s more lax standards

2021 - Webber - this hurts as I love those early 2000s Kings but they were actually a really balanced team and Webber got disproportionate credit as the biggest name

2018 - Hill - would be a slam dunk if not for injuries but wasn’t in his prime long enough

2023 - Parker - got a lot of the credit for the egalitarian 2010s Spurs by default, clearly worse than Manu

2022 - Hardaway - an very, very good player but never the engine on the good teams he played on

2025 - Melo - could maybe justify him through Team USA but certainly not first ballot, was impactful on mediocre teams and middling on good teams

2024 - Billups - an upper tier Hall of Very Good player in any other league

The Basketball Hall of Fame is pretty widely seen as the easiest Hall of Fame to get into, which I’m not personally a fan of, so I thought I go back through and select which players I’d prune from the last few classes

(I’ll focus on men because the women’s HoF is more selective)

There are not five point guards in NBA history better than Chris Paul

There’s Showtime, the Chef, Big O and maybe the Canadian with the lazy eye

And that’s it

The Logo would have been an SG in today’s game

I still think the best way to get new fans in will be to get more diverse, but as far as they go they do a good job

Niche take from me but I think the NHL’s ‘The new golden era is now’ ads are really really good

For a sport that has not been able to reach younger generations as well as the NBA and NFL, they do an excellent job of bridging that divide

Yeah it’s really odd, I imagine that his teammates all knowing he has the one of the worst contracts in the league is a drag even if he isn’t being personally unpleasant

This season will serve as a stark lesson to all the Jayson Tatum haters

The Celtics are god-awful without him

I love me some Derrick White but he needs to stop shooting

The Suns were a rollercoaster vs the Wolves

Defence was excellent, although I think the constant swarming did tire players out and lead to some of the turnover issues

Offence was just good enough

Man not to kick a man while he’s down but Bradley Beal might just bring bad vibes with him like a virus even when he isn’t playing bad

Rockets are great with KD
Suns are fun to watch again
Clippers now circling the drain

There’s a common denominator

Funny that the Prem has voted to impose a spending limit on player transfers/salary

Smug little me views this as a point in favour of my claim that the US sports had a better model of doing things

Maybe socialism ain’t so bad after all

Did not have either the Bulls or the Blazers being so entertaining on my 2025 bingo card

The Rangers were very very close to being on the level of the Golden Knights

They were level with them in 85% of game’s phases but they held onto the puck for slightly too long in the offensive end and let great chances degrade into good chances into weak chances into nothing

Raiders might have the worst offensive line in the league atm

But that doesn’t excuse Geno and Jeanty making some poor decisions in the situations they find themselves in

I think the Cardinals should clean house and move on from Kyler and Gannon

For a defensive HC to consistently put out such a poorly executing defence is really alarming

A selection of early window takes:

1) James Cook has been a top-5 RB this year
2) JJ McCarthy = not that guy, and I don’t have faith that he will become that guy
3) If Simmons was healthy for the whole season + wasn’t on the trash Titans, he’d be my DPoY

Predator Badlands fucking rocks

The Kings are competitive in direct proportion to how much they let Sabonis have the ball

Watching the Jets last night, you can almost see the outline of a good offence based around Justin Fields if you squint your eyes and tilt your head a bit

It would need to be very simple, but I think it could be effective

His legs are a genuine weapon, but once you’re behind the chains it’s over

The Sharks stole one against the Wild last night, largely through a very entertaining performance from Askarov

I’m not convinced at all by the team’s defensemen - way to many own zone TOs and basically no controlled zone exits all game

And the US has only itself (well about 50% of itself) to blame

So the US under Trump burying its head in the sand and refusing to go green, while China does it at the largest scale in human history is not only unconscionably terrible leadership, but also a guarantee that the global balance of power is going to in China’s favour