₦airaland Forum

Roland17:
I saw him during the game and wondered if he was of Nigerian descent. I thought he played well and was quite aggressive with rebounding on both ends, I think he had more than 6 rebounds.
He also moved his feet well and did well defending #slimreaper and other perimeter players. He did attempt two three point shots at one point but I don’t think that’s his game if he wants to be a stretch 5.

Thanks

Those who watched the USA vs Spain game, how was the Usman Garuba kid from real Madrid. Just found out his from Nigerian descent.

birdman:
No doubt. Lebron and Kawhi's names will be thrown in there too.

Just last year, Giannis was being flogged in the media. Couldnt make free throws, no jumpshots, cant read double teams and they lost disgracefully in the first round I think. One year later the cat has a serviceable fadeaway, makes his free throws and is unguardable. All this without any superstar additions - just decent PG and good defensive minded PF. He definitely will make a lot of people look bad.

You can always argue that without injuries, the super teams like Clippers, Lakers and Nets would have been in the finals, but that is why we play the games

Agree with all you say. I just want to add that for super teams one risk of building them is a lack of depth. So you can get all the stars but if one or two of them gets injured you have already sacrificed your depth to build said super team. So for this season the injury bug hit big time, which was to be expected because of the schedule and last season bubble.

SmooshCHN:
Na cruise jare. No mind us. Nice write up btw.

Where is that guy that was putting Eric Bledsoe and Jrue Holiday in the sentence? I just want to clarify something.

You still remember that blasphemy

birdman:
reminds me of bruce bowen on the spurs back in the day. Normally chill player, but when he ramps up defense, it gets borderline legal. You cant really say its an intentionally bad foul, at the same time you have to side eye the play

, this your comment brings back memories. Bowen na winch (not witch), the guy had a way of being dirty but somehow will always stay within 5 fouls for the game. When a coach like Pop is confident of leaving you 1v1 with Kobe, Tmac, Carter etc, it speaks to the fact that he got the job done, but the guy na hitman make I no lie.

Roland17:
Despite his size, CP3 has a strong personality, that can be interpreted as proud by some and many times that can rub people off the wrong way especially in a competitive environment, even outside sports. Some people call it ITK, other say na Bebescout!!

I am always wary of big leads because they are very deceptive. It requires a lot of mental toughness to carry a big lead to the final whistle in basketball.

You nailed it especially that ITK part. That is why he works better with a young team who are willing to listen to him and when they see it's working they swallow the other baggage that comes with it.
Even Booker said that 'his style is not for everybody '. CP3 came in and from the first training session was already in peoples face yapping at them, a team of veterans will always get rubbed the wrong way with that especially when they are not Winning the chip. But a young team that is tired of sucking like OKC last year and the Suns this year he kind of works

joshboo:
How's that not a foul on Middleton

The refs keep giving the Suns calls down the stretch

A40:
Jrue Holiday was averaging 33% on 17 shots per game prior to this one. Dfkm man! What kind of dishonest take is this

Middleton is averaging 4 more shots per game than Giannis

I posted earlier that Jrue was due a good shooting night and unluckily for the Suns it happened in a game 5 at their home court

Roland17:
Nope.. If to say na Thanasis/ Bam do am e for no get this kain hype! Hype to the level of being an All timer again LeBums? No Na. Again, I respect the block but that is not the onus of my argument.

Bams block on Tatum last year received the same amount of hype so don't bring that excuse. For some reason you don't like the guy at least own up to your prejudices.

Roland17:
Please tell me you are kidding with the attachment you have included! Please tell me this is a joke! I don’t know where you cropped it from but it is extremely obvious it lacks any kind of mainstream following which buttresses my point.

Let me get you straight, your idea of respect for Giannis is for him to be included in the conversation of GOAT or the face of the league? Habamana!!!! Dis Na the real problem..The fact that you deem that block better than LeBum’s and it is the narrative in the NBA today’s speaks to my point that Giannis gets a whole lot more respect than you are admitting. Like I said earlier, I could care less whose is better.

What exactly has Giannis achieved since he became a superstar to be placed on the same pedestal as LeBum/Kawhi/Slimreaper? I am LeBum’s biggest critic on this thread but the man has earned his stripe to even be in the conversation! This is nothing about back to back 40pt games, bro, anyone can put up that number! Booker nearly did, does that make him better than Giannis? Giannis performance or lack there of in the post season is open book for anyone to spy!

Outside of this season, what exactly has Giannis achieved in the post season? Please, this is not a conversation of his supporting cast! This is a conversation about him! Come on now!!! You guys have gone way too far with this thing.. At any point in time, can you make a credible statement that Giannis is the best player in the league? I am not talking about regular season MVP titles here! I am asking you to beat your chest and say over the last 3-4 years, there has been a year Giannis was better than LeBum, Slimreaper, Kawhi or even Curry? That Giannis was the best player in the league! This is what I mean whenever I question his mental strength. What effrontery !!!

Kawhi at his physical peak took a rubbish Raptors team to the finals and won a chip! Without Kawhi we can see the scam Siakam and the Raptors are! How about with the Spurs? Man these cats never made excuses because of team mates! Infact in the world of superstars, the excuse of team mates is not admissible let alone debatable. What are we even talking about here?

Do you have any idea how the league reveres Doncic? This man was projected to win the MVP even before the season started last season! Man just stop! There is no book where Doncic is disrespected because he is not American!!! He is ranked top 5 player in the league today on anybody’s list, so where is the disrespect? Embiid? You do realize Philly gave up its present and future to an African who can barely stay healthy! The entire City had trusted the process from day one and Embiid is the face of Philadelphia sports..Do you have any idea how much the Sixers and the entire City of Philadelphia have invested in Embiid? Man, this is about territory.. You earn it, nothing is given! Damian Lillard just turned 31, he is respected but he has to reel himself to the finals someway or somehow, he knows it..

Whoever wrote that stuff even had the nerve to bring up Shaq? Haaaaaaaaa!!! Make I leave that one because he is not anywhere close to the level of Shaw’s dominance..
Did you watch the pregame video by Spike Lee before game 4? I would encourage you to do that and focus on when Spike was flipping through jerseys and tell me what you see! That is respect.
You want to talk about players that have been disrespected? Talk about Charles Barkley, talk about Patrick Ewing, Talk about Isaiah Thomas, this man like KD was hated not even disrespected..Talk about D. Howard (there is even a debate questioning his HOF eligibility), talk about Penny Hardaway, Talk about David Robinson, Talk about “the Mail man (K. Malone)! There is no space in this world where Olajuwon is not respected.. There is no conversation about big men in the NBA where Olajuwon does not dominate the narrative.

Man, I know we are Africans and Nigerians by heritage but we are over doing this tin Na! Whatever Giannis achieves this season is what he is supposed to be doing! He is not an average Joe here! He is a superstar.. Make una stop with all these tins..No other superstar has enjoyed this degree of protection from the media.

Giannis is loyal? I get that but is he getting paid average Joe money? Giannis is getting paid a super max contract! The man is on a $228M contract with over $100M guaranteed and an annual salary of $25M in A SMALL MILWAUKEE and you are talking of disrespect!!!!!!!! what in God’s sacred name are we talking about here? The NBA is consciously looking to reward him for this decision. Let’s not act like he is getting paid peanuts or he restructured his contract to stay! The NBA has done its job by getting Giannis and the Bucks, a small market to the finals with a good chance of winning it all which will be great. Make no mistake, the league is ALL ABOUT THE MONEY! If Giannis left, the Bucks would have been in tartars. That would be another small market that went crashing after its player left and the impact would affect the pockets of the league owners in their revenue sharing!

The annoying part be say, I am now seen as a Giannis hater because I expect a certain level from him..

The fact that you can say what has Giannis done and then use Kwahi and KD as examples shows that you are just holding on straws. Kwahi won a title with a team that has 3 future HOF, his second title was against a team that was missing 2 all-nba starters and their best player. KD has only won while playing for a team that has one 2 time MVP, a 2 time DPY, and a multi time all star all in their prime. Kawhi who won a finals MVP while averaging less than 15ppg, that's who you are using as an example. If you want to push your narrative at least use better examples

As for his contract, If Giannis had refused to sign you would have called him weak for joining a super team, now he resigned you are calling him a greedy leach. His supermax contract was not negotiable, he signed the only contract that the Bucks could offer him.

PS:
Even LeBron has only won with at least one all-nba player and in Miami he had two.

birdman:
I think its the opposite. If the shots are there, take them. If not, let Jrue and Middleton carry the load. They gave Middleton those looks, and he knocked them down. Fantastic job by Giannis recognizing this, and still playing excellent defense.

On the other hand, Suns deferred to Booker too much, and he tried to carry the team. No one else on the team really got going. Thats the thing with superstar plays. If you rely on it too much, you have likely open teammates that are just standing there. Your stats will look good, everyone else's stat will look bad. This is what happened to Bucks in game 2, and everyone was praising Giannis and blaming the other 2. Now its the suns with Booker dropping 40 and everyone else looking bad.

Sometimes that is what it takes to win letting your 'others' take over when they are in the zone. This is why superstars who are true number 1 options can affect the game beyond just scoring which is what a Giannis, LeBron, Kobe, Olajuwon, MJ, Timmy etc could do effectively.

joshboo:
Na plays like this dey make them call am freak, to think the block was off an alley.... Omo na wa

Seriously,

Just rewatching that Giannis block on Ayton , how in God's name did he get back to make that play.

joshboo:
Omo them dey this thread ooo, funny clowns i must say. See the timely blocks on cp and ayton. He makes getting a Double/Double so easy in the biggest games.

Giannis is a flawed superstar in terms of skill set, but his determination and mentality is up there abeg. Like Chuck always say, if you're not scoring what are you doing? And he answers that question every time

joshboo:
Omo but this jrue holiday na brick layer ooo haba

True, but if pattern holds he is due one monster game scoring wise. They just need to come in game 5 now

chic2pimp:
I told y'all didn't I? And this dude is not done yet. Expect atleast another one 30+ game from Him this series.

One other thing he tends to start slow in a series and then play his way in. If he gives another 30+ performance in game 5, then I dare say Bucks in 6.

post=103720250:
Who be d people wey talk dat one

Some people were spitting that blasphemy up and down

Roland17:
Oh boy! Booker lucky there.. Should have been his 6th foul

Asssinn that call no be for here at all. Later you will be hearing some people say the league wants Giannis to win and are fixing the calls to make sure that happens

steady986:
I don't think this is true. I think America does as good a job, if not better, as their European counterparts. And the Europeans don't receive pro level coaching at a young age, because academy coaches can't really be called high level coaches, and thus you won't find them getting jobs in the big leagues. Just like in soccer and even in American basketball. You'd have instances where these coaches coach academy/high school/collegiate kids for their entire lives. Because that's just what they're good at and they're being appreciated and respected for their contributions in bringing these kids up.

I believe the dominance of the US in basketball is due largely to the system they run. Apart from a select few, how many foreign NBA players actually started playing basketball at a very young age? Embiid himself did not play basketball until he was 15. Giannis started playing meaningful basketball at age 13. Jokic was about 10 or 11 when began to develop interest. Compare that to Luka who started playing actively at 8 and you can see why he was already an MPV type player in his second year in the league. Now you look at their American counterparts you'd see that the started playing at a similar age to Luka or even younger. Kobe started playing at age 3. LeBron started at 9 but that's because he was already actively playing football before then.

Most European really just stumble upon basketball by chance. It's an afterthought to them, except for a select few like Luka. But in America they seem to be deliberate about it, and that's because of the system that's already in place.

Giannis started at 15, but due to his break through Greek kids are now taking up basketball. The general age of starting is gradually going down in the rest of the world. Try checking out Australia's development system, Spain and most of the old eastern European block. You will see former pro players coaching at the development level.
USA still has the overall talent advantage, but slowly the rest of the world are catching up. If Africa and Asia can get access to improved coaching the pace at which that gap will close will increase

steady986:
After all this analysis, USA go still win

People still underestimate the impact of the 92 dream team and David Stern on the push to make the game global.
The USA is the standard but rest of the world are catching up, not yet close, but the gap is closing. One other thing the rest of the world actually coach the game better at the development level, using the academy system developed for football where young players get professional level coaching. The AAU system has really slowed the technical development of American players in the last decade or so IMHO.

Roland17:
My panic level is at a 4.5/10, right now. I am quite worried but not panicking just yet. My biggest issue is the way the roster is constructed. We are going in playing small ball 100% of the time with one of Green/KD playing the 5. This makes it very easy to coach against.
The talent is there but this is international basketball where the rules are a lot more different especially with how contacts are called. We have near 0 perimeter defense at this point. I expect changes and adjustments and will wait until I see them play game one.

The US team needs a true PG. A backcourt of Dame and Beal will just lead to heavy Iso ball. They need someone apart from Draymond whose job is just to set every other person up. Just like Jkidd and CP3 did for the redeem team

Blueelf:
Source?

Brian windhorst of espn

Mike Brown is coaching the DTigers for free. I have always wondered how we could afford him

Is the AD vs Giannis debate over?

birdman:
Yeah, you cant trade Giannis points in the paint with Booker jumpshots. Bucks will have the edge. Someone needs to help Crowder out, forget all the gra gra Crowder is not that good on defense. I will gladly trade Giannis in the paint for jumpshots from middleton or jrue all day if possible. Giannis has upped his mental game though, so he is not going to quit easy

His mental toughness is very underrated IMHO, this dude routinely airballs FT and he still does not shy away from going to the rim and risking been sent back to the free throw line. Simmons showed how scared players can get when they are bad free throw shooters.

PS: Also his knee is not even at 100% and he is doing this, hope it pays off win a win

joshboo:
Nbbf is run by people who actually know the game of basketball, then the whole issue of politics hasn't crept in, (hopefully it doesn't) players aren't bribing their way or bribing the coaches to come n play etc. Between only a select few adore the game of basketball so.... It's not like football that every Tom, dicck & Harry is lobbying to get his guy, his brother, his state man to play for the national team.

Just hope they can create a culture of competent administrators so that it becomes a continuum

post=103617349:
Did you know that.... ?

How some normal sized people give birth to giants never cease to amaze me

joshboo:
Ha, you sure you've been following this playoffs? Abi you just wanna troll?

The problem is he makes a lot of them in 1 game and goes cold for a long time.

PDPGuy:
I get your point.

But to be fair, the NBBF is among the best if not the best-run Nigerian sports federation. I’m impressed by how they’ve gone about organizing training camps for the national teams, and hiring competent coaches.

Besides, we do not hear the usual stories of players being owed bonuses or appearance fees.

Facts, I have been observing them for a while, they really understand how to do their job.

A40:
No no no no no no. I know you're not trying to blame Giannis for Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday combining for 28 points on 38 shots!!! Not even the GOAT Michael Jordan would survive such incompetence. No player in league history will survive such rubbish play

This narrative that Giannis was somehow and in anyway the problem is problematic and needs to die swiftly. Is it Giannis that was making Jrue miss from 2 ft? Jrue took 14 shots in the first half. He only made 3! Two games vs a Trae Youngless Atlanta and everybody is forgetting how terrible Jrue has been these playoffs

Giannis play in the 3rd is the only reason that game didn't finish in a 35 point blowout. He's the only one with a positive +/-

The floor of the Bucks two other best players is unacceptable. Giannis on a bad night on his worst night will still give you 20 and 13 with 50% from the field. Jrue and Middleton on the other hand will go a combined 12/40. They will both play terribly on the same night and somehow people expect the Bucks would win?

The Bucks are a team seemingly determined not to play to their strengths. The difference is unlike Brooklyn these Suns have the personnel to punish them. Phoenix's role players are far better than Brooklyn

The beat down on Giannis I just don't understand, jrue and Middleton took 43 shots combined and both had bad shooting nights but it is still Giannis fault. I tire

Mustiboy:
Basketball, I wonder how you people enjoy it. The game isn't tactical to me; even the video game is boring.

Like almost all sports, it takes time to get how the the tactics work and how adjustments change the flow of the game. If you keep watching and especially listen to the technical part of the commentary you will start to get a picture of how the tactical game of bball is done

Roland17:
The Canadiens kill a 4 minute power play in the OT and score the all important goal afterwards to win and avoid a sweep. As for my Cubs? Well, let’s just say we are riding to our 10th strategy loss. I figured it was a matter of time before the true realities of this team showed up.

Finally, congrats to Nate McMillan as the Hawks remove the interim tag and both parties agree to a 4 year contract. Well deserved sir!!!

Nate deserves this. Just hoping the front office makes the right moves in the off season