They definitely could use more playmaking, he probably would help them. They are unlikely to be a pretty team to watch on offense, but Russ can make stuff happen in that context.

I think their defense still may be among the league’s worst and I don’t think their offense can be that great without a star offensive player, but at least they have more reasonable NBA players now and can have a more functional rotation with fewer random scrubs getting minutes.

Barred Owl. Great pic!

I’m not arguing Kobe wasn’t good, just that he had a much longer growth curve to stardom than most superstars that play big minutes and are mega productive right out of the gate or starting their second season.

Yeah, but he took until his fourth year to break out in the NBA. Obviously he was known for being really talented before then, but the progression of his stats was a lot like Giannis’s.

Yeah, I know Draftexpress was in on him. I think he had offers from higher level European teams, so he was getting some attention that drew NBA’s attention to him.

But definitely a bit of a weird case, he just was so obviously special in how comfortable he was with the ball in his hands for a guy who had barely played.

People keep listing one and some prospects that were five star recruits and were productive for high major teams. Pretty much opposite of Giannis.

Siakam probably closest bet, he has a somewhat similar trajectory. In general, Giannis wasn’t that special of a prospect outside of the eye test, extremely rare mega raw prospects to hit and they usually have relatively low upside

Brown was a blue chip recruit coming out of high school that was productive for a high major college as a freshman. Pretty much opposite of Giannis.

He may have fallen to 7th or 8th cause he had bad advanced metrics and a less than stellar statistical projection.

He was still in the league for a while before then and blew way past all star status, wasn’t near his peak at 22.

Most players that become stars are much more obviously productive much quicker. Usually being really productive at a young age is the minimum criterion for stardom. Kobe and, to a lesser extent, Kawhi are the only other stars I can think of that took so long to blossom and became superstars. All three of them needed sustained and mostly linear rates of improvement lasting multiple seasons to touch stardom, Giannis improved in almost every single statistical category for at least five consecutive seasons upon entering the league.

At the time he was traded, his TS% was like 44% and he was turning the ball over one 1/5th of his possessions. I thought perception of his value was kinda insane, he just had free reign to make as many bad plays as he wanted and so put up counting stats.

He got a little better after joining the Bucks, but was still wildly inefficient.

KG was more theatrical, less hate in his heart

That is fair. Although if they don’t overpopulate, it just means raccoons, red fox, and the like will. Just keep moving down the food chain.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but is that a conservation project or just a livestock protection policy? Like, do people in places coyotes are native not kill coyotes?

Where I live, in Massachusetts, coyotes play a pretty important ecological role. Even though they aren’t native, they fill a role vacated by extirpated predators, albeit not entirely. They traveled east because they are tougher to exterminate than you wolf and cougar and are less threatening to livestock

Yeah, but if you really want to get rid of the Barred Owl, I think that is what you need to do.

Personally, I’d just accept that the environment has changed in ways that benefit Barred Owls (and coyotes and opossum and armadillo and some other native species that have expanded their range)

Ok, I mean, they are taking advantage of natural and inevitable shifts in landscape. Humans have been changing landscape for over 13,000 years in North America, environments are never static, unchanging things.

The range expansion isn’t being driven intentionally by people, it is just due to Barred Owl habitat increasing/the right wildlife corridors being created.

Shooting them isn’t a permanent solution. You have to eliminate the habitat. Start clear cutting land, maybe poisoning rodents, really gotta try harder than just directly killing the owls. Else they’ll naturally just spread again.

There is no “natural” state of the world that exists without human interference, we are part of nature and we will be until we go extinct.

I think this is different. Barred Owls weren’t introduced to the area, they saw a natural range expansion due to being extremely successful in contemporary United States.

A better analogy would be comparing them to coyotes in the eastern United States, Opossum in the Northeast, or armadillo in the United States.

It is definitely a lot more complicated than just saying they are invasive, kill them all. If the right people see this policy and are inspired, it could become pretty harmful ecologically.

As far as I know, there used to be no Barred Owls there. Not sure if this works without also eliminating Barred Owl habitat

Still, it is a natural range expansion, right? Sure, human changes to landscape have enabled it, but the cat is out of the bag, the only way to truly solve problem is by destroying the habitat that enabled Barred Owls to spread. Spotted Owl’s native to old growth forest that barely exists anymore.

I get this is to protect biodiversity, but this doesn’t seem like something that is ecologically necessary. The world has changed from the one the Spotted Owl evolved in.

In addition to lacking webbing, turkey toes are more splayed out. The toes on the side wouldn’t face so far forward.

I remember that, hilarious moment

Ah, @nbainsidergoat, truly the greatest NBA reporter of all time

It is ironic how rebounding is one of his biggest weaknesses

Team still has a fair number of available minutes in the backcourt, especially if Beverley is gone

I thought he was more of a 3&NoD wing. Still, not like minimum salary players are usually good, Wright was a very lucky acquisition

I don’t think that guy has actual sources, he seems to tweet suspect stuff. I would love Trent, but I don’t believe this guy actually has insider knowledge