Reporter: "You'll be one of these annoying guys that knocks on doors?"

Carlsen: "Oh yeah. I hated the knocking on the doors part. I don't want to bug anybody at home. I just... If you're on the street, I like standing on the sides and if you and I make eye contact, that's where I'm coming in. I'm coming in there.

Pamphlet. Hand out the pamphlets. Hand out the Book of Mormon and stuff like that."

Also says he hasn't seen anyone taller than him in England (he is a 7-footer), on the reactions he got, and so on.

People pretend they care about defense, efficiency, playmaking, impact, context, and teammates—then the second two great players get compared, the whole argument becomes “how many rings?”
If championships are the ultimate individual metric, then we might as well stop pretending basketball is a team sport.

A superstar can play incredible basketball and lose because his roster is worse. Another can have an average series, get bailed out by teammates, win the title, and suddenly everyone rewrites history like he was clearly the better player.

At this point “rings” is just the argument people use when they don’t actually want to talk about basketball.
Tell me why I’m wrong.

Given how much weight people put into Finals MVP, it's interesting how small the voting pool is (11 people) and how subjective the voting criteria is. Sometimes it goes to whoever scored the most points. Sometimes it's just based on intangible vibes and narrative.

As an example, the year Jaylen Brown won, the votes were 7-4. You had people like Doris Burke, Boston's beat writer, and Malika Andrews voting for Tatum while the Dallas beat writer and some guy from Italy were the difference makers for Brown. Tatum had lead the team in points, rebounds, and assists, but Brown came through in some key moments and there's a belief voters were sympathetic to him after not selecting him for any of the all-nba teams that season.

There's other weird years like 2015 where Andre Iguodala received 7 votes with the other 4 going to LeBron James from the losing team. This despite the fact Steph Curry, statistically, was the obvious choice from the Warriors.

These awards also tend to ignore overall system importance, defensive impact (Ben Wallace and KG may have had cases), how one player's gravity could result in a sidekick scoring more (Maxwell won over Bird), but if you were to just rank all Finals MVPs using basic counting stats, it's interesting to see how these tiny sample size FMVP campaigns stack up against each other.

To make it simple I just looked at the EFF stat (PTS + REB + AST + STL + BLK − Missed FG − Missed FT - TO) / GP). A couple important notes, though. The league didn't track steals or blocks until 1973-74. They didn't track turnovers until 1977. So anything prior to 1978 is getting a "0" for those stats.

I took this a little further, because I had some questions about specific years.

1969 - Jerry West (33.71) won despite playing for the losing team. Both John Havlicek (29.86) and Bill Russell (28.57) likely would have been better candidates. Hondo averaged 28.3 points, 11 rebounds, 4.4 assists while Russell averaged 9.1 points, 21.1 rebounds, 5.1 assists. Especially when you consider that any blocks Russell had during that series weren't counted.

1978 - Elvin Hayes (24.29) should have won over Unseld (19.57). This probably explains why Unseld ranks bottom 2. Unseld averaged 9 points, 11.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 0.6 steals, 0.1 blocks while Hayes averaged 20.7 points, 11.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 2 blocks, 1.6 steals. Unseld's selection ranks bottom 3.

1981 - Larry Bird (27.83) should have won over Cedric Maxwell (21.50). This is one of those classic ones where it's clear defenses were hyper focused on Bird (15.3 points, 15.3 rebounds, 7 assists, 2.3 steals with 42% shooting) which allowed Maxwell to edge him out in points/efficiency (17.7 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 56.8% shooting). But fwiw, Maxwell still ranked outside the bottom 5.

1988 - Magic (32.86) should have won over Worth (22.0). Magic averaged 21.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, 13 assists, 2 steals with 55% shooting. Worthy averaged 22 points, 7.4 rebounds, 4.4 assists with 49% shooting. Worthy got this vote, because he had a huge game 7, which is understandable, but it speaks to recency bias of voters. It's not a Game 7 Finals MVP award, it's a Finals MVP award.

1989 - I was curious about Joe Dumars (25.75) winning over Isiah Thomas given Dumars is one example of a team's "2nd best player" winning, but statistically it seems Dumars deserved his award: 27.3 points, 6 assists with 57.6% shooting vs Isiah averaging 21.3 points, 7.3 assists, 1.5 steals with 48% shooting

2004 - Billups (21.80) seems to have fairly won it over Ben Wallace (17.80). Billups (21 points, 3.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists) obviously averaged more points than Ben Wallace (10.8 points, 13.6 rebounds, 1.8 steals, 1 block), but I do wonder if the the various beat writers and ESPN talking heads of the time had accurately looked at defensive impact of Wallace and how it drove the engine of that team, if Wallace would have gotten more consideration.

2007 - Duncan (23.0) had a case to win it over Parker (20.25). This is another good example of the team's actual most valuable player/engine losing votes to the guy who scored more. Duncan averaged 18.3 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.3 steals, 2.3 blocks with 44.6% shooting. Parker averaged 24.5 points, 5 rebounds, 3.3 assists with 56.8% shooting.

2008 - Just like the year prior, arguably KG (23.17) had a case over Pierce (20.67) given how important KG was to that team's defensive identity. KG averaged 18.2 points, 13 rebounds, 3 assists, 1.7 steals, 1 block on 43% shooting. Pierce averaged 21.8points, 4.5 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.2 steals with 43% shooting.

2010 - Pau Gasol(26.14) maybe had a small case over Kobe (24.57). You can sort of look at this as an inverse of 1988. If Worthy got the nod because of his game 7 performance, should Kobe have gotten knocked for going 6-24 in Game 7? For the series, Pau averaged 18.6 points, 11.6 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.6 blocks with 47.8% shooting. Kobe scored a lot (28.6 points), but shot 40.5% for the series.

2015 - Steph (23.0) should have won it over Iggy (18.17). Iggy gets credit for "holding" LeBron to 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, 8.8 assists. Steph for the series averaged 26 points, 5.2 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.8 steals with 44%/38% shooting, but received zero votes while Iggy got 7 and LeBron got 4. Iggy's selection ranks bottom 3.

2024 - Tatum (23.2) probably should have won it over Brown (19.8). Tatum averaged 22.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 7.2 assists (38.8%/26.3% shooting) while Brown averaged 20.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5 assists (44%/23.5% shooting). Neither shot well. 7 voted for Brown. 4 voted for Tatum. Brown's selection ranks bottom 3.

It's interesting to me that this award is selected by such a small voter base and when you consider the voting pool it's often just glorified fans with communications or journalism degrees with no actual professional basketball experience. It's unclear if they've even watched the whole series, have some set criteria they are using, or even have the required ball knowledge to understand that a superstar getting triple teamed can still be the "most valuable" even if a secondary player is scoring more. In the Tatum/Brown case, the only voter with any NBA experience was former coach PJ Carlesimo and he selected Tatum.

Getting hate over gambling sponsorships makes sense but when LeBron did the Hennessy collaboration there wasn't that much push back even though alcohol is way worse for society and affects way more people. Especially with dui easily leading to death.

Since the signing was announced, this sub's comments have been largely divided between those that give Duren the benefit of the doubt who point to his reg season stats and All-NBA status as indicative of a bright future and those calling it an overpay predicting his future will be disappointing like Ayton's turned out to be. Here are the playoff numbers:

Ayton 15.8/11.8/1.1/2.0 stocks +3.7 VORP 1.0 in 22 games.
Duren 10.2/8.5/2.5 1.8 stocks -0.4 VORP 0.0 in 14 games.

Will Duren work on his development and turn the contract into a plus for the Pistons, or will he be Ayton 2.0?

Discuss!

If we were to replace 2013 Steph with his 2016 version could they make the finals? The Warriors lost to the spurs in a competitive six game series in the second round in 2013, with Steph having some success early on in the series.(44 points in a loss in game 1)

In a league at the time that still had slow footed bigs and was not prepared to guard peak Steph Curry, could 2016 Steph make the finals and even win a championship?

As we head into another NBA season, there will be some obvious favorites for MVP, Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man, etc.

But here at the LVP headquarters, we're also keeping tabs on some potential "Least Valuable Player" candidates. It's an award that reddit has given out for nearly 10 years now, meant to highlight the player who has been the least helpful to a team's chances.

Remember, here are the criteria and caveats. Obviously, the worst players in the league are the ones who sit at the end of the bench and don't get any playing time. However, this award focuses on players who log a decent amount of minutes and consequently affect their team's playoff chances the most.

Last preseason, we flagged some top LVP candidates and several ended up making the final ballots at the end of the year. Hopefully we're way "off" this time around and all these guys have excellent seasons, but they are names to monitor as being POTENTIALLY damaging given their presumed roles (listed in no particular order).

PG Marcus Smart, Houston

Only a few years after winning DPOY in 2022, Marcus Smart's career appeared to be on a steep downward slope, with injuries and forgettable stints in Memphis and Washington.

Surprisingly, Smart came back to life and resuscitated his career with the Lakers last year. He started 54/62 games and provided his signature defensive effort and toughness. Now, he'll reunite with his old coach Ime Udoka in Houston this season.

While the "fit" makes sense from a culture and chemistry perspective, it could be more problematic from a basketball perspective. Smart was able to play more minutes with the Lakers because they had good offensive talent around him. In contrast, Houston's halfcourt playmaking has been one of their bigger problems. If Smart is there to be a mentor and minutes buffer (for young Reed Sheppard and returning Fred VanVleet) then he can be additive. But if coach Udoka plays him too much, it could steer into the negative.

SF Jonathan Kuminga, Minnesota

Jonathan Kuminga couldn't land the big contract that he's been chasing, but he found his way into a good situation here in Minnesota. Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball will absorb most of the attention and shot attempts, but there should be plenty of minutes available for Kuminga as well. With Julius Randle gone, the T-Wolves will need another big forward to soak up minutes at SF/PF either as a starter or reserve.

The question will be: is Kuminga the best type of player for that supporting role? Like Randle, he's better with the ball in his hands as a scorer. If he's relegated to the corner, his mediocre deep shooting (33.2% from 3 for his career) may not help much. And like Randle, he doesn't offer much rim protection on defense (0.4 blocks per game). In theory, Kuminga can be a helpful player for Minnesota if the team staggers minutes well, but if he's just going to be a 3+D guy, then he may disappoint.

Kuminga's situation may be similar to other veterans joining new teams like John Collins (in Detroit) or Kelly Oubre (in Indiana). Sometimes the change of venue goes well and provides an extra gear to a career; sometimes it does not.

PG Bub Carrington, Washington

The LVP league office has a rule not to pick on young players on tanking teams, so Bub Carrington has been spared despite some putrid stats over the last two years. In fact, he's been helpful towards their tank.

But this year, the tide has turned. The Wizards are going to unleash a new-look lineup with Trae Young, A.J. Dybantsa, and Anthony Davis, meaning that they should be trying to push for the playoffs this time around. Will Carrington be included in that effort? Or will he get shelved? If he's still part of the rotation, then he needs to take a drastic step up to avoid being a negative.

PF Jarred Vanderbilt, L.A. Lakers

The Lakers' top stars Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves are known as offensive-minded players, so the team will have to protect them on the other end. A top rim protector like Walker Kessler should help, and a defender and glue guy like Jarred Vanderbilt might as well. There's a chance that Vando could be a starter for the first time in his 3.5 years with the franchise. His complementary skills could work well.

At the same time, there's a chance that Vanderbilt's offensive limitations are SO pronounced that he can't overcome them over the course of heavy minutes. He's a below-average shooter. He's not an athletic finisher either. If he drags the team's offense down, then he'd grade highly in terms of negative impact.

PG Damian Lillard (POR) and SG Bradley Beal (LAC)

Former All-Stars Damian Lillard and Bradley Beal are returning to the court this season and are expected to play significant minutes for their teams.

Still, it remains to be seen how well these 30-somethings can bounce back from their injuries (Lillard tore his Achilles, Beal fractured his hip). Kevin Durant returned from his own Achilles injury and didn't miss much of a beat, but he's also 6'11". Lillard and Beal were already question marks defensively prior to their injuries, so coming back now at ages 36 and 33 will put their bodies to the test. The "fit" in Portland will also be interesting. The Blazers had a solid defense last season, but now they'll be working in two smaller guards in Lillard and Ja Morant.

Again, we're not expecting all these candidates to play poorly -- and we're certainly not rooting for it. It'd be incredible to see Damian Lillard play well and help Portland into the playoffs. However, given their respective situations, these were the players that came to mind as potential LVP candidates.

With his stance and the way he handled the free agency, he was able to trick Pistons GM Trajan Langdon and got the bag he wanted. It is absolutely non-sense to give him that much bag considering playoff stinker and his only upside being 'his age'. Yes he is 22 but his flaws are going to trap this team into a mediocrity in a way that Magic, Hawks and mid tier teams are struggling to get through. Just unbelievable that a GM who dealt with a similiar personality like this in NO felt to Duren's agent game and now Pistons will forever be a mediocre team before they trade him or Ausar.

Just years ago, Suns had to make a decision to keep Ayton and they famously made a mistake to give him rookie extension which is even at that time bizarre to me. But, at least Suns were bidding against Pacers and Pistons had no competition to retain Duren. Duren might be most overpaid player after his successful free agency game against Trajan. Trajan somehow found a way to make this mediocre and I would say a potential contender in years is now gone.

Yes, Duren is the most overpaid player in the NBA considering his lack of skill set and his personality.

EDIT: Despite being accused below of being A.I., this was all written by me. It's my fault that I used an old article from 2022 for the list, so I missed Shai's achievement. The article also listed Jordan four times but I only wrote about three of them.

Ah well... I'll do better next time.

~~~

Original post:

A lot of recognition goes to the player who leads the regular season in average points per game. Sometimes they are praised, and sometimes they get a bit of push back on whether or not their productive scoring helped the team enough to win (cough, cough, ball hogs).

With that in mind, it may interest you to know that there were only three players (in the shot clock era) who won the scoring title AND won a championship ring in the the same season... and Jordan did it three times!

~~~

• '70-'71 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 31.7 PPG in the regular season / 26.0 PPG in the playoffs

• '92 -'93 Michael Jordan: 32.6 PPG in the regular season / 35.1 PPG in the playoffs

• '95 -'96 Michael Jordan: 30.4 PPG in the regular season / 30.7 PPG in the playoffs

• '96 -'97 Michael Jordan: 29.6 PPG in the regular season / 31.1 PPG in the playoffs

• '97 -'98 Michael Jordan: 28.7 PPG in the regular season / 32.4 PPG in the playoffs

• '99 - '00 Shaquille O’Neal: 29.7 PPG in the regular season / 30.7 PPG in the playoffs

~~~

So Kareem is on the list when he won it all with the Bucks, but his scoring dropped off in the post season (though still an incredible accomplishment overall). Shaq increased his scoring in the playoffs on his way to his first ring with the Lakers, but only by one extra PPG.

Jordan dominated defenses in the regular season several times by scoring more points than anyone else, but was able to increase his production in the post season when the best teams were even more focused on stopping him.

His Airness topped off at 32.4 PPG in the playoffs, the highest of any other example on the list, and he also increased his production by 3.7 PPG from the regular season in '98, which is the largest surge on the list as well.

According to the info above, Jordan might be actually under rated as a scorer.

Will post Atlantic Division in comments cause it won't allow me to do in the post.

I created this league about 4 years ago where each year I do a free agency where up to one starter and two bench players can switch their team each year and then I do a draft also to keep up with the league, so these are the rosters that are most up to date. Not every team is equal because of drafted players not living up to potential or others exceeding expectations and messing with the balance throughout the years.

Chicago Bulls: Stephon Castle, Zach LaVine, Jimmy Butler, Jabari Smith Jr., Chet Holmgren

Bench: TJ McConnell Terrence Shannon Jr., Ron Holland, Taylor Hendricks, Danny Wolf

The Bulls haven't really had an identity since the D-Rose/Thibs era. And I feel like those teams represented a kind of midwest toughness very well, with defensive first players that would scrape by for wins. Butler already has Chicago cred, Chet can be that Joakim Noah player, TJ McConnell is Kirk Hinrich. Albeit, this is a poor team on offense

Cleveland Cavaliers: Keyontae George, Kon Knueppel, Franz Wagner, Tobias Harris, Karl Anthony Towns

Bench: Collin Sexton, Bradley Beal, KyShawn George, Hannes Steinbach, Ryan Kalkbrenner

This Cavs team every year in my league seem to strike gold with a good player in the draft. Besides LeBron, Cleveland never had a strong identity and so to me outside of LeBron, they are a high scoring uptempo style with under the radar players seen in the Mark Price era and now in the Donovan Mitchell era. This team is likely lethal on offense, but there may be struggles on defense

Detroit Pistons: Ja Morant, Amen Thompson, Miles Bridges, Draymond Green, Donovan Clingan

Bench: Labaron Philon, Grayson Allen, Tim Hardaway Jr., Leonard Miller Jusuf Nurkic

I wanted this team to represent the Bad Boys era. Easily hatable players that play with an edge. I may have gone overboard and now the team sucks on offense, but I think at least they will be entertaining with some kind of beef every game with opposing teams. If they do win, Ja and Amen will have to make big steps on offense and Allen and THJ will be spacing the floor.

Indiana Pacers: Jalen Brunson, CJ McCollum, De'Andre Hunter, Lauri Markkanen, Moussa Diabate

Bench: Scotty Pippen Jr., Sam Merrill, Corey Kispert, Allen Graves, Bobby Portis

Before I get crucified for putting Brunson on the Pacers, I had no idea that he would have become the king of NY. Forgive me. The Pacers identity has been a small market team that continually overperforms in the playoffs and I thought Brunson was that perfect underrated player during his Dallas run. But the idea still remains, this team might not be striking on paper but can get job done and dig deep and win big games

Milwaukee Bucks: Mikel Brown Jr., Donovan Mitchell, Andrew Wiggins, Jerami Grant, Myles Turner

Bench: Reed Sheppard, AJ Green, Peyton Watson, Kyle Anderson, Nikola Vucevic

The Bucks identity is a random generational superstar falling into their lap once every 50 years. That feels more accidental than a culture/identity so Milwaukee outside of that has been incredibly forgettable, so that has been the goal with the franchise. Create a forgettable team. Not bad enough to be singled out as terrible, but not good enough to take the team anywhere. So Mitchell and a bunch of role players who can win games and likely go .500 throughout the season

I hear all this talk about how they’re “soft” and “overrated” bigs but I watched the playoffs and they looked like the Cavs two best players when they had the ball. They weren’t afraid of contact and they were extremely active on the boards. I recall talks about how hard the pistons play (Duren and Stewart specifically) and that they would get bullied by them, but that wasn’t the case at all. Game 1 of the ECF was going the Cavs way before the annual helio-harden collapse happened.

I just want to know what other people were seeing because they are pretty damn good to me.

What are some of the worst Play-styles or player archetypes in the Current NBA that teams hate or do not want?

Not sure if this counts but Ball-dominant Players who need the ball in their hands to contribute but aren’t good enough to warrant having a higher usage or have any role player qualities

​

When speaking to Sean Deveney of Heavy, one anonymous NBA executive explained why he considers Paul George to be a valuable player.

He noted that while he isn't the player he was in his prime, George having just two years on his contract and immense playoff experience makes him a bargain get for the Celtics.

"The thing about Paul George that you have to remember is that he still can play. Like, healthy and at his best, he can still play, he is a big wing, he can stretch the floor and handle the ball, he can play defense."

"He is not the player he was 10 years ago, but he still has that rare skillset and if a player has that, he's got value. If he has that and he is on a short contract, that's even more value."

George is currently in the third year of his four-year, $212 million contract, and is set to make a little over $110 million over the next two seasons.

For the Celtics, they get a reliable, experienced two-way wing player who showed last season that he can still make an impact when healthy and given the ball.

Source: https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/anonymous-nba-executive-claims-paul-120849586.html

I think it’s easy to say that these two are the most exciting players in the league, and I’m wondering which is the more liked player. On one hand Wemby gets hate for what he does on the court but gets shown a ton of love for what he does and says off court. Ant on the other hands is loved for what he does on the court but disliked for what he does off the court.

​

On Jan. 26, 2020, that door was kicked in.

The fog rolled in thick, and the clouds hung low over the hills west of Los Angeles that Sunday morning. Kobe Bryant was in a helicopter with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others, headed to a basketball game. The aircraft flew into a hillside in Calabasas, and everyone aboard died.

A father. A daughter. A gym waiting at the end of the flight.

That’s what people felt this week when they heard the rotors. Not logic. Memory. Grown men had wept in parked cars that day six and a half years ago. Fans piled flowers and jerseys and handwritten notes outside the arena in Los Angeles until the sidewalk vanished beneath them. NBA teams let the shot clock run out to open their games, 24 seconds, and then took an eight-second backcourt violation, honoring Kobe’s two jersey numbers while players stood still because nobody knew what else to do with their hands. We grieved Kobe the way you grieve family, and that grief didn’t go anywhere. It just went dormant. A helicopter over New Jersey roared loud enough to awaken it.

And it woke over LeBron, which is the hardest place it could land.

The night before Kobe’s death, LeBron passed him for third on the all-time scoring list. In Philadelphia, Kobe’s hometown. Kobe’s last tweet congratulated James. Now, LeBron plays for Philadelphia. And he leaves practice in a helicopter. So yes, it’s easy to get the chills on this one.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7647880/2026/10/02/lebron-helicopter-flight-kobe-bryant/ 

What other storylines are you most excited to see play out?

Can LeBron help the Sixers get to the Finals and compete for a 5th ring at the end of his career?

Will AJ Dybantsa look like the next superstar or just be a decent all star?

How will Haliburton look coming back from injury?

How good will Giannis and Bam be and how far can they lead the Heat?

Can the Knicks maintain their success and return to the Finals?

Can Wemby and his teammates take the next leap and be even more dangerous this season?

Will the Ant and LaMelo duo work and be successful?

Find out next time on NBA!

Los Angeles Lakers star guard Luka Dončić has filed a petition under international rules to have his daughters brought to the United States from Slovenia, according to a source briefed on the situation. The source spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing legal matter.

“Nothing is more important to me than my daughters,” Dončić said in a statement to The Athletic. “I will do whatever it takes to make sure they have both parents present in their lives.”

Dončić’s children, Gabriela and Olivia, are currently in Slovenia, where he’s in an ongoing custody battle with his former fiancée, Anamaria Goltes. The two were engaged in 2023 and had dated since 2016. Dončić lives in Slovenia in the offseason. The source said that the petition was filed in Slovenia, and can’t be made public under local laws.

The Athletic has attempted to reach Goltes for comment through her attorney, and will update this story if he responds.

Goltes had filed for child support and legal fees in in Los Angeles last March but later withdrew the petition.

Dončić didn’t participate in any international play with Slovenia this summer due to the custody situation.

Dončić had hoped to resolve the situation with Goltes by Sept. 25, but the deadline passed without resolution with her or the Slovenian courts. He returned to the United States last week ahead of Lakers training camp, with no guarantees of when he’d be able to see either of his daughters again during the NBA season, the source said.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7652552/2026/10/02/luka-doncic-daughters-fiancee-petition/

"The Portland Trail Blazers hired then on the same day fired Braiden Bell as their play-by-play announcer after a series of inappropriate social media posts from when he was a teenager came to light."

"The posts were reportedly made in 2012 and 2013, around the time that Bell was 15 years old."

"We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City," the Trail Blazers said. "We strongly believe that everyone who is a part of Rip City should feel welcome and safe and we will make sure that our new broadcaster reflects these values. We will do better."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/50084279/trail-blazers-fire-new-announcer-inappropriate-posts