It’s really not.
Most athletes don’t last that long. Big roid doctors aren’t working with those guys anyways.
Of the big dudes like bron, curry, they probably do HGH for recovery and maybe a cardio supp but not much more.
They aren’t bodybuilders and the extra muscle mass would just make them more injury prone. None of the guys on our college wrestling team are blasting tren like people seem to think.
Exactly, PEDs =\= blasting anabolic steroids and putting on muscle mass like a bodybuilder
Everyone thinks of steroid scandal in MLB, but amphetamine usage was/is pretty big
Also HGH, MK-677, peptides, etc - there are tons of compounds that aren’t AAS
I'll probably get flamed for this, but I believe Ritalin was discovered in Kobe's system, and I began to wonder whether it was his first encounter with the drug.
I was actually prescribe Concerta, and it nearly gave me a heart attack.
Concerta changed my damn life for the better 1000%. I never realized that "impulse control" affects your subconscious mind as well as your tangible actions. Having complete thoughts is fuckin lit.
Brains are weird, man. Oh yeah, never heard that about the Kobester either. I competed on Concerta and it was like clicking the takeover button in 2k. So much clarity.
It’s not about steroids and getting big a mind muscled up… it’s about stuff for recovery and maintaining thier bodies. Most pro athletes are doing something that is considered Performance enhancing
Not at all. For the scrubs, perhaps. I’ve had friends in the NFL and the impression they give me is that dudes are just good athletes. Do I have the data? No, but it doesn’t make sense that someone like Joel Embiid or Kevin Durant or James Harden is taking or needs to take PEDs. Why bother when the majority of the top stars are just genetic freaks?
Injury recovery. Certain PEDs help your body recover a lot faster, making them ideal for staying healthy through a long season or recovering from an injury quickly.
I would bet lots of money Lebron and CP3 are on a few things.
Because in the NFL you only get like a 4 game suspension if you’re caught (when it’s super easy to avoid detection). There’s a whole career of benefits and almost no penalties to taking them. If it’s you vs another guy you want every advantage you can get.
That was so glossed over.
I remember him making that remark during a radio interview, and most people immediately assumed he was referring to Dwight Howard or LeBron James.
adderall is a proven PED but its one of the few athletes are allowed to take with a prescription.
thats the issue- its impossible to get PEDs out when they have other legitimate uses.
edit- hell, coffee is a PED
For real ? I was wondering about 2nd 3 peat Pippen recently, especially if you compare him to now, he's so skinny ...his arms were big and cut then
Still would say he was natty though
Also less conspiracy and more the truth behind what NBA teams say in their press releases:
When Houston signed Parsons to that huge deal, they said it was because of RFA status and not letting him walk but from Parson's own mouth it was so the team could make a deal with Howard's agent, who was also Parson's agent.
Didn't the Mavs offer him that contract and the Rockets didn't match? And then Memphis offered him the the max the season after? His agent just wanted them not to pick his option, i think.
THe handwritten thing is a joke. He clearly won the award because he's one of the friendliest people in the league and has a great relationship with most media members. You might get more results if you search for that.
The thing that bugs me with Harden's MVP candidacy is the way the standard flipped for him.
In 2014-15 he had better numbers than Steph (including but not limited to 35 thirty point performances to 17) and carried a way worse way more injured team but Curry won because he led his team to 67 wins compared to 57.
That's fair enough, the message was sent that wins matter more than stats.
However then in 2016-17 when he led Houston to the league's third best record they decided to flip the criteria again to give it to Russ who led the 10th ranked Thunder because he had better stats.
Then they flipped it back for Giannis, I’m sorry but there’s no way any one can convince me that if Steph dropped 36 a game for a season he wouldn’t win MVP. They tried to give it to him for making the damn play-ins.
Harden has a career that could’ve realistically had 1-2 more MVPS along with 1-2 more titles if the ball rolls just a little differently. There’s a reason you can’t only look at accolades and awards to determine all time greats.
Harden has the 12th most MVP shares in league history. 2nd most among active players, and more than KD or Curry.
Active players
-LeBron: 8.814 (most all time)
-Harden: 3.656 (12th)
-Durant: 3.209 (14th)
-Curry: 2.655 (20th)
-Giannis: 2.31 (25th)
Totally ignoring Giannis on defense. He was the best in both MVP years.
You are making up hypotheticals about Steph which is dumb. He earned both MVPs and deserves a finals MVP.
The only argument is Westbrook vs Harden. Westbrook had the triple double narrative and KD leaving. It felt close in the moment and it still feels like it is a close call. Other Harden years were better than his 2017 year imo.
Steph was third in MVP voting last year as the 9th seed. I didn’t say Giannis wasn’t deserving, I said if Curry dropped 36 that season or any season his team finishes top 5; he would’ve been MVP. I’ll gladly stand by my opinion. My whole comment is based off the “hypotheticals” that could’ve given Harden more hardware.
I’m not here to shit on other players because that’s not how I enjoy this sport, but denying that there’s no bias or bullshit to award voting is just ignorant beyond belief.
Why is this comment so downvotes? Harden should pretty objectively have more MVPs, I think 2017 for sure, 2019 is close but I wouldn’t personally give it to him, although he definitely has a very good argument for that season.
no need to think it
we know it, the NBA had a report done after the Donaghy scandal which found that most of the refs do the same thing
which lead to NBA refs being banned from any form of gambling, but that later changed and now they just can bet on sports lol
because a ban is going to stop them
Whole lotta ganja getting smoked in the ranks. In terms of ‘open secret’ I remember one of The Athletic authors (Aldridge I think?) mentioning secure and consistent access to it as a big point of concern for players heading to the bubble.
Tons of it lmao. You listen to JJ redick or Matt Barnes’ podcast it becomes obvious how popular it is. Makes sense, too, it’s great for recovery and minor aches and pains. Aside from just being cool lol
You can call a foul on a lot of drives to the rim.
I always see tons of contact.
You can also make “good no calls” on touch fouls. Funny how some players get a lot of touch foul shots and some players get a lot of “good no calls”.
I feel like this is incredibly obvious. Watch a guy like Luka, Harden, Butler, etc. and compare the calls they get vs. an average player in the league.
They also wait to see if the ball goes in before calling a foul a lot.
It's wild and then people just accuse you of being salty/Homer but it's so fucking obvious which stars get the easiest and softest shooting fouls while some 12th man can basically get decapitated with 0 call. I'm remembering when Pat Connaughton got roundhouse kicked like 10 weeks ago right in front of a ref and immediately started bleeding from his face. No call.
That Adam Silver forced out Sam Hinkie because the tanking cost other teams money in revenue sharing. He then forced the oversight of the Colangelo's that almost destroyed Hinkie's war chest of assets. But allows blatant tanking and asset accumulation by the Thunder because they are a small market with a small fanbase who contributes little to revenue sharing.
Edit: I have zero issues with OKC's tanking, only the hypocrisy of the NBA in comparison.
Blatant tanking and asset accumulation when we’ve been bad for only two years, not to mention we have a pretty big gap from the actual worst teams. Presti doesn’t advertise his “process” and that’s the difference that separates the two.
I agree with you that advertising the process definitely angered the league and contributed to Silver stepping in, but there were really only 3 seasons where the sixers tanked, and they were the worst team in the league for only one of those seasons.
There’s definitely an argument for that, but they weren’t bad because of mismanagement like a lot of the other historically bad teams. If you just look at the standings then yeah, they’re one of the 5 worst teams ever, but I think context is important in this instance. They ended up finding key rotational players on the margins and got the number 1 overall pick that year, which was clearly the goal. Sure, the output on the court was bad, but there were advancements taking place through the season that a lot of fans were really excited about. That can’t be said for many other teams with a sub-.15 winning percentage.
Also Giddey and Dort. Those two are miles better than anything those Sixers teams had, especially Giddey. It helps a whole lot to be able to see guys like them and SGA light it up
Pretty big differences between 6ers Process and OKC Process.
Thunder have only been tanking since late 2020, and made the playoffs in 2020. 76ers had 5 straight years of no playoffs and 3 straight years of trying to lose as many games as possible.
Hinkie 'resigned' the year the 76ers went **10-72 and lost 28 straight games**. The Process at that point had three seasons of **0.232 , 0.220 , and 0.122**
For reference OKC is at .317 this season.
Most believe the Sacramento Kings were the best team in the league that year. Were in the middle of an instant classic series against the lakers in the WCF. Kings led the lakers 3-2 when they played in LA for game 6. Lakers had the 2 best and most marketable players in Shaq and Kobe, while the Kings had the much better team and style of play.
The narrative is that it was in the leagues best interest to have a game 7 for the TV ratings and money. In the 4th quarter alone of game 6, Lakers shot 27 free throws to like 6 for the Kings. Many of the calls were so egregiously bad that the commentators were openly saying they were terrible calls, writers wrote pieces about how it was the worst officiated game of all time, etc. Politicians even called on the league to investigate at the time. There's a pretty good video on YouTube about it set to some Coldplay song.
Do the 5'11" Shaqs have the same skills as the 7' Shaq? If so, I'd take the Muggsy team. Shaq can't shoot and there's no way his 2 inch vertical get's him to dunk at 5'11.
- MJ was suspen....umm he retired to play baseball
- Referees were "influenced" for a bit there after MJ retired in '98
- For all the bluster and NuMbErS, there was a bit of speculation that Wilt was gay. Almost like if a star were overcompensating a bit with their outlandish womanizing habits. A "beard", as it were.
I forget where i read it but an interview with wilt’s sister after he passed she said that she was pretty close with her brother and never saw women at his home, obviously there are many pictures of him with women in public but it’s a bit strange that she would say she never saw anything like that at his home. She may have even speculated he was gay herself i dont recall but she certainly cast aspersions on a lot of the mythos around his sexual life
Lots of guys did stuff with other guys back in the day. It came with the drug habits. Richard Pryor was smashing both guys and girls together. True story.
Try not to be so 2022. Nobody gives a shit if Wilt was gay or not (unless he was and could have destigmatized the gay athlete 50 years ago) but the question was about NBA open secrets. It's an appropriate answer.
As iconic as Wilt was, he wasn’t going to singlehandedly destigmatize being a gay athlete when our country only allowed gay marriage to be legal like 10 years ago. Shit even with it being legal, sports are still pretty homophobic and there’s a bunch of closeted professional athletes.
> sports are still pretty homophobic and there’s a bunch of closeted professional athletes.
Sports have some of the most hypersexual bros who are all (barring a tiny sliver) a buncha sexist old-fashioned cavemen.
2 things: Cap circumvention (Nets were paying stripclub for a former player) and NBA doing nothing against doping (there is even one guy who hides PEDs in a fake beard to take them in game)
At the beginning of this thread all answers were James Harden, so I took real stuff (Nets paying a lot of things for their stars and NBA doing their best to not catch cheaters) and make it about Harden. I can’t guarantee it never happen though.
I would definitely not call her a slut because that's a very awful thing to do???? What kind of assumption is that my god???
It was a harmless joke about a multi-millionaire having been with a lot of women
I mean the women that marry athletes know what time it is.
If you marry a famous athlete and expect him to be faithful with the options he has, you’re naive. These dudes are freak athletes raging with testosterone. They’re gonna be fucking around.
100% true, Westbrook tore his meniscus and came back jumping exactly as high and running exactly as fast as before. Adrian Peterson tore his ACL and came back to rush for 2k yards one year later. These dudes aint taking vitamins and drinking milk to recover from career threatening injuries.
So funny when people are like “no athletes today are just built different than athletes 20 years ago” as if the human race is just skipping 10k years of evolution every 5 years
if they’re recovering from an injury, taking whatever helps should be allowed. Sure that could cause everybody to Say they’re injured but I’d rather they recover fully.
No PED is going to make ligaments or grow back faster. Steroid treatment, while reducing inflammation, causes long term weakness if applied regularly. I honestly think you guys are conflating many different things here.
IGF-1 does help repair soft tissue. HGH can be an adjunct treatment. Peptides like tb-500 are pretty big aswell. Theres more than topical corticosteroids we're talking about here...
All top tier athletes are tbh. If you removed all PEDs from every sport, do you know who’s be dominating those sports ? The same people who’re dominating them today. PEDs are just frowned upon because they’re taboo.
I think its tougher for baseball because if you get busted your reputation is heavily damaged unlike other major NA sports (not sure about Hockey since I don't follow it that much)
Like plenty of NBA and NFL guys have gotten busted and no one ended up really caring all that much in terms of their legacies. But if you get even suspected of roid use in baseball it follows your forever and if you're caught/admit to it before voting then you have like 0 chance of making the hall
So baseball players might not do it as much now because of just how much it affects perception of them IMO
It was in the open I suppose but the blocking of the CP3 trade really is crazy in retrospect - players now I’d imagine would unify on some level and social media was still in it’s infancy
this one is always the opposite. When you actutally look into it, the veto makes complete sense.
You can try to argue about hypothetical packages in hindsight, but the league owned/had control over the team and all decisions.
Blazers and kings got f*cked over by David Stern and the refs. this is why donaghy was the scape goat, he was a pos but so we're like 5 other refs. He said multiple times his dream matchup was Lakers vs Lakers. The whistle blower podcast is a pretty good listen for anyone interested
It didn’t hold true back then and it doesn’t hold true today. If all NBA players to this day were actually on PED’s there would be more stories, leaks, suspensions, talk etc. about it than a single Derrick Rose quote from 11 years ago.
This sub is a giant conspiracy theorist mesh pot. It would rather believe that all players are on PED’s than look at the fact that if that were true there would’ve been a giant scandal about it already. I don’t know what’s hard to believe about 19-27 year old dudes advancing their bodies under some of the best dietitians, trainers, physical therapists etc. in the world.
The ones that have been caught juicing have been hit with lengthy suspensions and were withheld from pay. If everyone was juicing the league wouldn’t go out it’s way to target and punish a few players for it then completely ignore everyone else that was out there doing it too.
Michael Jordan putting on a bunch of muscle mass over one off-season, while doing hard cardio everyday, just does not make sense if he wasn’t using some type of drug to boost his muscle growth.
If you know anything about lifting/weight training it looks a lot more probable. These guys are not good at lifting due to their height and the amount of time they have to spend playing ball.
These dudes are in the 99.9th percentile of athletes in the world and come into this league as 18-24 year olds. You think them being on PED’s is more probable than them advancing their bodies after being put on programs and individualized training/diet plans by some of the best Nutritionist, PT’s and trainers in the industry??
1. Even most „family guys“ cheat regularly.
2. Most players are either terrifyingly stupid, bigoted or both.
3. The NBA produces thousands of 25 year olds every year with no skills except playing basketball at a level not high enough to be paid for it even outside the US. Even if they recover, playing basketball is often arguably the worst thing that ever happened to them.
This is no secret, but when David Stern was in office, he specifically stated that the NBA does not conduct steroid tests because their is no advantage gain for a basketball player. That's right. Lebron James is/was on steroids. Karl Malone, Ben Wallace, Ron Artest, you name them.
Also, another secret. ESPN magazine had a column called Player X, where an anonymous player stated that some players are only on the court because their rich daddies are pals with the team owners or coaches. That could explain why players such as Luke Walton were even in the NBA.
Also, usually when you see a trade that doesn't make sense and makes you ask, "what were they thinking", it's usually because one of the players were messing around with another players girl or wife, eg. Steve Nash-Amare Stoudemire-Quitin Richardson.
Also, BLACKBALL is a thing among the higher ups in the NBA. If you are a bad influence like Lance Stephenson or Stephon Marbury, coaches, GMs, owners and even the commissioner would get together and declared "blackballed" on your ass. You will never play in the nba again!
I'll never forget Derrick Rose saying most of the NBA does PEDs and then the NBA forcing him to walk it back...
likely truth for most athletes
Professional athletes maybe
It’s really not. Most athletes don’t last that long. Big roid doctors aren’t working with those guys anyways. Of the big dudes like bron, curry, they probably do HGH for recovery and maybe a cardio supp but not much more. They aren’t bodybuilders and the extra muscle mass would just make them more injury prone. None of the guys on our college wrestling team are blasting tren like people seem to think.
I was thinking recovery as well. Anyone suggesting PED for mass isn’t necessarily insidious, but somewhat very mislead.
Exactly, PEDs =\= blasting anabolic steroids and putting on muscle mass like a bodybuilder Everyone thinks of steroid scandal in MLB, but amphetamine usage was/is pretty big Also HGH, MK-677, peptides, etc - there are tons of compounds that aren’t AAS
I'll probably get flamed for this, but I believe Ritalin was discovered in Kobe's system, and I began to wonder whether it was his first encounter with the drug. I was actually prescribe Concerta, and it nearly gave me a heart attack.
Concerta changed my damn life for the better 1000%. I never realized that "impulse control" affects your subconscious mind as well as your tangible actions. Having complete thoughts is fuckin lit. Brains are weird, man. Oh yeah, never heard that about the Kobester either. I competed on Concerta and it was like clicking the takeover button in 2k. So much clarity.
Duddddee what!!! Concerta has me doing the dishes.
It’s not about steroids and getting big a mind muscled up… it’s about stuff for recovery and maintaining thier bodies. Most pro athletes are doing something that is considered Performance enhancing
Not all PEDs are Tren and HGH
[удалено]
Not at all. For the scrubs, perhaps. I’ve had friends in the NFL and the impression they give me is that dudes are just good athletes. Do I have the data? No, but it doesn’t make sense that someone like Joel Embiid or Kevin Durant or James Harden is taking or needs to take PEDs. Why bother when the majority of the top stars are just genetic freaks?
Injury recovery. Certain PEDs help your body recover a lot faster, making them ideal for staying healthy through a long season or recovering from an injury quickly. I would bet lots of money Lebron and CP3 are on a few things.
Because in the NFL you only get like a 4 game suspension if you’re caught (when it’s super easy to avoid detection). There’s a whole career of benefits and almost no penalties to taking them. If it’s you vs another guy you want every advantage you can get.
Lmaooo
That was so glossed over. I remember him making that remark during a radio interview, and most people immediately assumed he was referring to Dwight Howard or LeBron James.
Probably true for every sport.
adderall is a proven PED but its one of the few athletes are allowed to take with a prescription. thats the issue- its impossible to get PEDs out when they have other legitimate uses. edit- hell, coffee is a PED
The basketballs have corks in them too
Don't forget the magnets
For real ? I was wondering about 2nd 3 peat Pippen recently, especially if you compare him to now, he's so skinny ...his arms were big and cut then Still would say he was natty though
Why’s this downvoted?
Probably because he’s comparing a retired 50 something year old Pippen to the ripped nba athlete Pippen
Lol, I just understood what he meant by that
Also less conspiracy and more the truth behind what NBA teams say in their press releases: When Houston signed Parsons to that huge deal, they said it was because of RFA status and not letting him walk but from Parson's own mouth it was so the team could make a deal with Howard's agent, who was also Parson's agent.
I read that yesterday too
Yep whenever you see an outsized contract that makes you go “excuse me, wtf?” Usually it’s to please an agent to get at a bigger fish
Didn't the Mavs offer him that contract and the Rockets didn't match? And then Memphis offered him the the max the season after? His agent just wanted them not to pick his option, i think.
Benny the "Bull" is really just a pig wearing horns
No Benny slander.
Beat a top team
Whoa! Why you choose violence like that…
Award voting is influenced considerably by ties and allegiances media members have to players/teams/people within organizations
To agencies. Same people repping the players are repping many of the pundits.
Oh yeah you could write a whole series of books on the influence agencies have in the NBA at all levels its wild
Jamal Crawford winning 6MOTY over Iggy and arguably Kanter because he sent the voters handwritten letters says a lot about this.
Oh wow i didn’t know about this!
Damn that shit still works these days? Lol my mom was right?!
Got a source? Googled but couldn’t find anything
THe handwritten thing is a joke. He clearly won the award because he's one of the friendliest people in the league and has a great relationship with most media members. You might get more results if you search for that.
Yeah, tell me about it. 2015 FMVP voting was 100% propaganda, even moreso because of the tiny sample size of media members
I know, Lebron should have won it
100%
I’ll forever be salty Harden is a 1 time MVP, would likely have 3 if the media liked him in my opinion - certainly would’ve had 2.
The thing that bugs me with Harden's MVP candidacy is the way the standard flipped for him. In 2014-15 he had better numbers than Steph (including but not limited to 35 thirty point performances to 17) and carried a way worse way more injured team but Curry won because he led his team to 67 wins compared to 57. That's fair enough, the message was sent that wins matter more than stats. However then in 2016-17 when he led Houston to the league's third best record they decided to flip the criteria again to give it to Russ who led the 10th ranked Thunder because he had better stats.
Then they flipped it back for Giannis, I’m sorry but there’s no way any one can convince me that if Steph dropped 36 a game for a season he wouldn’t win MVP. They tried to give it to him for making the damn play-ins. Harden has a career that could’ve realistically had 1-2 more MVPS along with 1-2 more titles if the ball rolls just a little differently. There’s a reason you can’t only look at accolades and awards to determine all time greats.
Harden has the 12th most MVP shares in league history. 2nd most among active players, and more than KD or Curry. Active players -LeBron: 8.814 (most all time) -Harden: 3.656 (12th) -Durant: 3.209 (14th) -Curry: 2.655 (20th) -Giannis: 2.31 (25th)
Totally ignoring Giannis on defense. He was the best in both MVP years. You are making up hypotheticals about Steph which is dumb. He earned both MVPs and deserves a finals MVP. The only argument is Westbrook vs Harden. Westbrook had the triple double narrative and KD leaving. It felt close in the moment and it still feels like it is a close call. Other Harden years were better than his 2017 year imo.
Steph was third in MVP voting last year as the 9th seed. I didn’t say Giannis wasn’t deserving, I said if Curry dropped 36 that season or any season his team finishes top 5; he would’ve been MVP. I’ll gladly stand by my opinion. My whole comment is based off the “hypotheticals” that could’ve given Harden more hardware. I’m not here to shit on other players because that’s not how I enjoy this sport, but denying that there’s no bias or bullshit to award voting is just ignorant beyond belief.
Voter fatigue that makes them create a new narrative of which matters more I guess?
Why is this comment so downvotes? Harden should pretty objectively have more MVPs, I think 2017 for sure, 2019 is close but I wouldn’t personally give it to him, although he definitely has a very good argument for that season.
James Harden uses fat suits
Lmao
Tim Donaghy wasn’t the only one.
Anyone with a brain agrees with this. There are many more
I’ve been thinking this for a long while.
no need to think it we know it, the NBA had a report done after the Donaghy scandal which found that most of the refs do the same thing which lead to NBA refs being banned from any form of gambling, but that later changed and now they just can bet on sports lol because a ban is going to stop them
Sorry for this, but could you provide some context? Idk that name
He was an NBA ref who got caught betting on the games.
Oh gotcha. I would agree he wasn’t/isn’t the only one
Whole lotta ganja getting smoked in the ranks. In terms of ‘open secret’ I remember one of The Athletic authors (Aldridge I think?) mentioning secure and consistent access to it as a big point of concern for players heading to the bubble.
Tons of it lmao. You listen to JJ redick or Matt Barnes’ podcast it becomes obvious how popular it is. Makes sense, too, it’s great for recovery and minor aches and pains. Aside from just being cool lol
The refs are as dirty as the league wants them to be on a game to game basis. Doping is absolutely rampant.
You can call a foul on a lot of drives to the rim. I always see tons of contact. You can also make “good no calls” on touch fouls. Funny how some players get a lot of touch foul shots and some players get a lot of “good no calls”.
I feel like this is incredibly obvious. Watch a guy like Luka, Harden, Butler, etc. and compare the calls they get vs. an average player in the league. They also wait to see if the ball goes in before calling a foul a lot.
It's wild and then people just accuse you of being salty/Homer but it's so fucking obvious which stars get the easiest and softest shooting fouls while some 12th man can basically get decapitated with 0 call. I'm remembering when Pat Connaughton got roundhouse kicked like 10 weeks ago right in front of a ref and immediately started bleeding from his face. No call.
That Adam Silver forced out Sam Hinkie because the tanking cost other teams money in revenue sharing. He then forced the oversight of the Colangelo's that almost destroyed Hinkie's war chest of assets. But allows blatant tanking and asset accumulation by the Thunder because they are a small market with a small fanbase who contributes little to revenue sharing. Edit: I have zero issues with OKC's tanking, only the hypocrisy of the NBA in comparison.
Blatant tanking and asset accumulation when we’ve been bad for only two years, not to mention we have a pretty big gap from the actual worst teams. Presti doesn’t advertise his “process” and that’s the difference that separates the two.
I agree with you that advertising the process definitely angered the league and contributed to Silver stepping in, but there were really only 3 seasons where the sixers tanked, and they were the worst team in the league for only one of those seasons.
I’ll say they were arguably the worst team in history in 2016
There’s definitely an argument for that, but they weren’t bad because of mismanagement like a lot of the other historically bad teams. If you just look at the standings then yeah, they’re one of the 5 worst teams ever, but I think context is important in this instance. They ended up finding key rotational players on the margins and got the number 1 overall pick that year, which was clearly the goal. Sure, the output on the court was bad, but there were advancements taking place through the season that a lot of fans were really excited about. That can’t be said for many other teams with a sub-.15 winning percentage.
There’s levels to tanking. OKC isn’t good, they’re a hell of a lot better than the Process Sixers.
And they have real exciting players as well. Sure they sick but they got SGA. They are not egregiously tanking like the process sixers.
Also Giddey and Dort. Those two are miles better than anything those Sixers teams had, especially Giddey. It helps a whole lot to be able to see guys like them and SGA light it up
We only finished with the leagues worst record once (and that team was admittedly awful but keep in mind we did have Embiid. He was just hurt.)
Blatant taking from OKC and not the teams that were behind OKC in the standings last year _and_ this year too. Sure thing
Pretty big differences between 6ers Process and OKC Process. Thunder have only been tanking since late 2020, and made the playoffs in 2020. 76ers had 5 straight years of no playoffs and 3 straight years of trying to lose as many games as possible. Hinkie 'resigned' the year the 76ers went **10-72 and lost 28 straight games**. The Process at that point had three seasons of **0.232 , 0.220 , and 0.122** For reference OKC is at .317 this season.
This thread is about 75% pure trash.
Shouldn't your usernsme be NBAtoMemphis-Com?
How much agencies and middle men control the happenings of the NBA behind the scenes Look up World Wide Wes
He works for the Knicks now
2002 WCF. That’s all that needs to be said
2001 ECF as well. There are several series in the early aughts that were very fishy.
They wanted Iverson in finals so bad. People would look at Ray Allen differently if he got to the finals with that bucks team.
Explanation pls?
Most believe the Sacramento Kings were the best team in the league that year. Were in the middle of an instant classic series against the lakers in the WCF. Kings led the lakers 3-2 when they played in LA for game 6. Lakers had the 2 best and most marketable players in Shaq and Kobe, while the Kings had the much better team and style of play. The narrative is that it was in the leagues best interest to have a game 7 for the TV ratings and money. In the 4th quarter alone of game 6, Lakers shot 27 free throws to like 6 for the Kings. Many of the calls were so egregiously bad that the commentators were openly saying they were terrible calls, writers wrote pieces about how it was the worst officiated game of all time, etc. Politicians even called on the league to investigate at the time. There's a pretty good video on YouTube about it set to some Coldplay song.
Is the song Fix You?
Yep....that's the one.
Thanks for the award! Since the Kings didn't get their title, I accept this in honor of the 02' team.
Link?
https://youtu.be/qjRcTiwVEwo
Thanks
Durant is actually 7'3 tall Shaq is actually 5'11
Who would win a team of 5'11 shaqs or a team of muggsy bogues'
The 5 Bogues would win because of the skill difference and that other nba secret... Muggsy Bogues is as tall as Shaq.
Do the 5'11" Shaqs have the same skills as the 7' Shaq? If so, I'd take the Muggsy team. Shaq can't shoot and there's no way his 2 inch vertical get's him to dunk at 5'11.
James harden led a nazi regime into Western Europe in the early 1940s
Someone shop Hitler with harden's beard
[I'm no Sim888, but I did my best.](https://i.imgur.com/mo4d1s9.png)
No
- MJ was suspen....umm he retired to play baseball - Referees were "influenced" for a bit there after MJ retired in '98 - For all the bluster and NuMbErS, there was a bit of speculation that Wilt was gay. Almost like if a star were overcompensating a bit with their outlandish womanizing habits. A "beard", as it were.
I have trouble believing gay. Would not have trouble believing bi.
I forget where i read it but an interview with wilt’s sister after he passed she said that she was pretty close with her brother and never saw women at his home, obviously there are many pictures of him with women in public but it’s a bit strange that she would say she never saw anything like that at his home. She may have even speculated he was gay herself i dont recall but she certainly cast aspersions on a lot of the mythos around his sexual life
Lots of guys did stuff with other guys back in the day. It came with the drug habits. Richard Pryor was smashing both guys and girls together. True story.
There's that story of Pryor and Brando.
Kareem mentioned the women he’d see wilt with in his autobiography so maybe he wasn’t gay? Who knows or cares really?
Try not to be so 2022. Nobody gives a shit if Wilt was gay or not (unless he was and could have destigmatized the gay athlete 50 years ago) but the question was about NBA open secrets. It's an appropriate answer.
As iconic as Wilt was, he wasn’t going to singlehandedly destigmatize being a gay athlete when our country only allowed gay marriage to be legal like 10 years ago. Shit even with it being legal, sports are still pretty homophobic and there’s a bunch of closeted professional athletes.
> sports are still pretty homophobic and there’s a bunch of closeted professional athletes. Sports have some of the most hypersexual bros who are all (barring a tiny sliver) a buncha sexist old-fashioned cavemen.
James Harden had breast reduction surgery
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More info, please
What is wrong with you
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Me 3. Mostly water too but after reading this became thankfully solid. Weird
2 things: Cap circumvention (Nets were paying stripclub for a former player) and NBA doing nothing against doping (there is even one guy who hides PEDs in a fake beard to take them in game)
Alright... Who the fuck has a fake beard they're hiding drugs in?
James Harden has been known to hide HGH bottles and insulin syringes in his beard so he can pin himself during timeouts.
At the beginning of this thread all answers were James Harden, so I took real stuff (Nets paying a lot of things for their stars and NBA doing their best to not catch cheaters) and make it about Harden. I can’t guarantee it never happen though.
Soupcan Sam. Used to play for Santa Barbara
Nba rigged 2002 completely. They pushed for a lakers comebsck in 2000 as well by getting sabonis out of g7 Lbj and giannis are roided up
steve ballmer sometimes dresses up as the clipper condor
ja morant is smashing these hoes left and right despite just having a kid
A lot of athletes are tbh
Curious. Since many players do this, and some would say most do, why are you explicitly calling out Ja?
because its recent yes tristan thompson also smashing everything too if thats what youre getting at but thats open knowledge
And good for him
fr
Why are you being downvoted? These athletes are living the dream most of us had growing up. Good for them.
The reddit monogamy defense force lmao
I have no idea.... people are dumb
if it was a woman, would you say good for her, or would you call her a slut? just curious.
I would definitely not call her a slut because that's a very awful thing to do???? What kind of assumption is that my god??? It was a harmless joke about a multi-millionaire having been with a lot of women
I mean the women that marry athletes know what time it is. If you marry a famous athlete and expect him to be faithful with the options he has, you’re naive. These dudes are freak athletes raging with testosterone. They’re gonna be fucking around.
LeBron has been on PEDs for a minute
Not just LeBron. Every top performing athlete at their respective sport is taking some form of PEDs
100% true, Westbrook tore his meniscus and came back jumping exactly as high and running exactly as fast as before. Adrian Peterson tore his ACL and came back to rush for 2k yards one year later. These dudes aint taking vitamins and drinking milk to recover from career threatening injuries.
Plant based diet!
So funny when people are like “no athletes today are just built different than athletes 20 years ago” as if the human race is just skipping 10k years of evolution every 5 years
*Muh modern exercise physiology* I mean it definitely plays a role but the ever-advancing PED industry helps just as much if not more
So you're telling me you *haven't* evolved gills?
if they’re recovering from an injury, taking whatever helps should be allowed. Sure that could cause everybody to Say they’re injured but I’d rather they recover fully.
No PED is going to make ligaments or grow back faster. Steroid treatment, while reducing inflammation, causes long term weakness if applied regularly. I honestly think you guys are conflating many different things here.
IGF-1 does help repair soft tissue. HGH can be an adjunct treatment. Peptides like tb-500 are pretty big aswell. Theres more than topical corticosteroids we're talking about here...
Tagging you as my dealer for when shit hits the fan
where can i buy some tombrady-500?
All top tier athletes are tbh. If you removed all PEDs from every sport, do you know who’s be dominating those sports ? The same people who’re dominating them today. PEDs are just frowned upon because they’re taboo.
I think its tougher for baseball because if you get busted your reputation is heavily damaged unlike other major NA sports (not sure about Hockey since I don't follow it that much) Like plenty of NBA and NFL guys have gotten busted and no one ended up really caring all that much in terms of their legacies. But if you get even suspected of roid use in baseball it follows your forever and if you're caught/admit to it before voting then you have like 0 chance of making the hall So baseball players might not do it as much now because of just how much it affects perception of them IMO
LeBron been taking HGH cocktails since he entered the league. No doubt.
and Brady
Giannis and mj too. Those guys both suck at lifting and look exactly how a novice lifter on gear would look.
Since his Ohio football days in highschool
Yep, Giannis is probably the most egregious case
LeBron is actually legit, his son told me
Nike owns the league
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Y’all dumb as fuck if you think the league would bother rigging the lottery to prop up a LeBron-less Cleveland team.
James Harden has beard implants
James Harden was one of the NBA players of all time.
Delonte West fucking Lebrons mom…
It was in the open I suppose but the blocking of the CP3 trade really is crazy in retrospect - players now I’d imagine would unify on some level and social media was still in it’s infancy
this one is always the opposite. When you actutally look into it, the veto makes complete sense. You can try to argue about hypothetical packages in hindsight, but the league owned/had control over the team and all decisions.
Kobe Bryant was actually a giant bipedal lizard disguised as a human.
Heard from a friend of a friend that Jody Allen is a bit gropey.
It's a open secret that the mods will delete this before it has 50 comments.
Lebron is/was secretly running the GM position of every team he was on. Is that open enough?
Nah, Pat Riley didn't let it happen in Miami, but otherwise yeah
Awards are almost meaningless.
Mavs/Heat 06 *insert mjcry face*
Blazers and kings got f*cked over by David Stern and the refs. this is why donaghy was the scape goat, he was a pos but so we're like 5 other refs. He said multiple times his dream matchup was Lakers vs Lakers. The whistle blower podcast is a pretty good listen for anyone interested
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Didn't know Qanon had an NBA wing
What did it say?
"Qanon has an NBA wing."
Idk what that would even mean honestly.
Someone watched the Batman movie
Here come all the people saying all players are on PED’s because of a Derrick rose quote from…a literal decade ago
Why would it not still hold true today lmao
It didn’t hold true back then and it doesn’t hold true today. If all NBA players to this day were actually on PED’s there would be more stories, leaks, suspensions, talk etc. about it than a single Derrick Rose quote from 11 years ago. This sub is a giant conspiracy theorist mesh pot. It would rather believe that all players are on PED’s than look at the fact that if that were true there would’ve been a giant scandal about it already. I don’t know what’s hard to believe about 19-27 year old dudes advancing their bodies under some of the best dietitians, trainers, physical therapists etc. in the world. The ones that have been caught juicing have been hit with lengthy suspensions and were withheld from pay. If everyone was juicing the league wouldn’t go out it’s way to target and punish a few players for it then completely ignore everyone else that was out there doing it too.
Michael Jordan putting on a bunch of muscle mass over one off-season, while doing hard cardio everyday, just does not make sense if he wasn’t using some type of drug to boost his muscle growth.
If you know anything about lifting/weight training it looks a lot more probable. These guys are not good at lifting due to their height and the amount of time they have to spend playing ball.
These dudes are in the 99.9th percentile of athletes in the world and come into this league as 18-24 year olds. You think them being on PED’s is more probable than them advancing their bodies after being put on programs and individualized training/diet plans by some of the best Nutritionist, PT’s and trainers in the industry??
Yes.
Adam silver is a puppet commissioner being controlled by Klutch Sports
Adam Silver is just a human suit worn by the aliens who rule the NBA with an iron fist.
1. Even most „family guys“ cheat regularly. 2. Most players are either terrifyingly stupid, bigoted or both. 3. The NBA produces thousands of 25 year olds every year with no skills except playing basketball at a level not high enough to be paid for it even outside the US. Even if they recover, playing basketball is often arguably the worst thing that ever happened to them.
why does this comment feel racist
Mike Korzemba already made a great video on this.
Giannis is the face of the league and the refs will push his team to the finish line.
David Stern had MJ's dad killed over the gambling stuff
Well this is fucking dark
This is no secret, but when David Stern was in office, he specifically stated that the NBA does not conduct steroid tests because their is no advantage gain for a basketball player. That's right. Lebron James is/was on steroids. Karl Malone, Ben Wallace, Ron Artest, you name them. Also, another secret. ESPN magazine had a column called Player X, where an anonymous player stated that some players are only on the court because their rich daddies are pals with the team owners or coaches. That could explain why players such as Luke Walton were even in the NBA. Also, usually when you see a trade that doesn't make sense and makes you ask, "what were they thinking", it's usually because one of the players were messing around with another players girl or wife, eg. Steve Nash-Amare Stoudemire-Quitin Richardson. Also, BLACKBALL is a thing among the higher ups in the NBA. If you are a bad influence like Lance Stephenson or Stephon Marbury, coaches, GMs, owners and even the commissioner would get together and declared "blackballed" on your ass. You will never play in the nba again!