Dub Hub: LeBron James calls Steph Curry, Allen Iverson the ‘biggest influences’ for today’s NBA
“You can’t do that anymore and you know why?” James said. “Whenever that little lightskinned f-er came into the league that’s in Golden State, he changed that whole narrative. He single-handedly changed the ‘no lead is safe’ [paradigm]. It’s like Pat Mahomes right now. Love that guy, I love Steph.”
James’ praise of Curry didn’t stop there, with the NBA’s all-time scoring leader saying that the Warriors superstar and Allen Iverson are the two most influential players since he’s been watching basketball.
“When it comes to influence, since I’ve been watching the game, [the players with] the most influence on the game, Steph and Allen Iverson are the two biggest influential guys in our game,” James told Redick
Green told Kuminga that his best position to create his own shot from was in the midrange area, an observation Kuminga and Vereen confirmed on the shot chart and began to apply on the court.
“[Kuminga] came to me like, ‘AV, if I just take one more dribble I’ll be at the rim.” Vereen said. “He saw that it opened up so much for him and the team, and then he committed himself to living at the rim and making the right reads.”
“(I try to) see it from their perspective,” Podziemski said. “If I was an offensive player, what would I do?”
Podziemski has taken many of his charges in transition, where he looks for space on the court and tries to beat opponents there. “You (have to) anticipate side steps,” Hardaway said, agreeing. That requires identifying and predicting opponents’ tendencies, particularly those of star players. Podziemski recently used one of Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo’s ticks against him.
“When (Giannis) drives left, he likes to spin,” Podziemski said. “I was in the corner and he was driving left, so I just ran over there in case he spun right.”
Capping off the season of fits and starts, of hurdles cleared and batons dropped, the Warriors started their latest homestand Monday with a loss to the Knicks. New York is a good team. Losing to the No. 4 seed in the East isn’t inherently bad. But, man, they were beatable. And the Warriors are running out of time to escape the well.
Can they still put together that epic surge before it’s too late?
“Absolutely,” Curry said. “Sorry to give you a short answer, but absolutely.”
The Clippers are deep in the tax and don’t control their own first-round pick through 2030. Their best players are 32, 33 and 34, and they may have no choice but to pay two of them this summer and keep trying to push this rock up the hill. (Keep an eye on Paul George, by the way. Presumably, if there was a max extension sitting around for him, he would have signed it by now; I think it’s fair to say a couple of cap-room teams in the East are, um, “monitoring” this.)
The biggest issue was rebounding. In those 9 1/2 minutes, the Nuggets grabbed just 19% of available defensive rebounds, with the Mavs scoring eight of their 23 second-chance points. Jokic’s overall on-off differential remains huge (19.4 points per 100 possessions) and defensive rebounding is a big part of it. For the season, the Nuggets have grabbed 74.5% of available defensive boards when he’s been on the floor and just 65.7% when he’s been off the floor.
Moody’s case is a little less extreme. His strong all-around play and lack of mistakes would do wonders for a starting lineup that struggles with missed defensive assignments, low energy, and poor turnovers. But the fact that he’s been trusted with just eight minutes in the last two games makes it seem like perhaps Kerr doesn’t see him as one of the team’s best players; and is that someone you want starting?
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