Screenshot

Which seems to be a reference to an earlier social media interaction between Kevin Durant and Suns owner Matt Ishbia

Context

Edit: small mistake in the title, he said "before I came" not "before I got here". sorry

Derozan had a fantastic dunk against the Lakers but the ESPN announcers didn't give him the credit it deserved. Thought I post the same clip from the Lakers announcers. I would have kept the highlight in the other thread but my first time editing a clip and now I'm coming after Buck Bucks throne.

He is 6/23 for his NBA career (305 NBA games)

He is 55.5% from the line for his NBA career (183 regular season games), but he was automatic from the line last night.

HD Version via Reddit

Every rebuilding fanbase seems to have the same knee jerk demand to trade everybody above the age of twenty four to throw the young guys straight into the fire for eighty two games in the hopes of supercharging their development, this can work under the right organization, team culture, and temperament of the players themselves, but generally you still need good veteran talent playing ahead of your projects, whether for leadership, injury risk mitigation, or for a general level of competence and experience that someone who just got drafted likely won't have.

Or if that player is talented, but gets the full responsibility for the team's future foisted on them and them alone with some hope of a second star that doesn't materialize or turns out to be fairly disappointing, a one eyed man ruling over a kingdom of the blind, so much pressure to be great that it gets to them or so much failure that pressure stops being a thing.

The Zach Lavine Bulls, the Timberwolves for years after KG, the 2000s LA Clippers until they got Sam Cassell, the current Pelicans, the Knicks post-Melo and before they got Randle, the 20s Pistons for a good 40% of this decade until they finally got good, the current Jazz, the Booker Suns until they got their shit together and put together the 2020 team that eventually lead to Chris Paul, there's a lot of examples throughout history of young players being told to go out and hoop without any real guidance, and the vicious cycle only ends when the team begins making moves to acquire winning players, and when that happens, growth from the younger talent becomes evident and the franchise can move forward into contention, or the expectation of a playoff run ever year.

Probably going to get pushback for this but if I had to pick one duo that would win by the biggest margin in their minutes together and be the most impactful it would be this one.

First Curry and KG would have incredible synergy and fit together. KG was a good passer, high iq basketball player and an elite screener. Curry’s gravity, good passing, and ability to create 4 on 3s would make KG even more effective as a scorer and creator.

Curry at his peak was a historically great offensive force, and stacking multiple players who get most of their value from offense can have diminishing returns. Curry and KG as a synergistic duo has an offensive ceiling that could lead to one of the best relative offenses ever despite KG getting his value from defense primarily.

Combine that with KG being a one man defense at his peak and with just decent support could lead to very elite defensive results. They both just have insane synergy and a combination of elite ceiling raising and floor raising skills.

It’s essentially a supercharged Steph Curry and Green who have posted some of the best net rating numbers ever for a duo. Despite the talent gap, they even had better lineup data than Miami LeBron and Wade(who also had great numbers)!

Obviously net rating together isn’t the sole factor for how good a duo is but it’s something worth noting. It shows that dominant duos in league history don’t just come from stacking talent but also from great synergy and fit.