Here we are in Week 4 of the JBL season. We are roughly 15% of the way through the season and we can finally see things settling down in the nightly standings. By this I mean that we don't see teams moving up or down 300 points in a given night just because they have a lot (or no) man games. Sure, +/- 100 points is still possible, but we're starting to "normalize".
The last JBL Chronicle covered 3 big trades and I would be remiss if I didn't touch on the deal that I was involved in since the last time. Golden traded Damian Lillard to Idaho for Josh Giddey and Chris Duarte. So many points to note on this deal.
- Golden was after Giddey since the day Idaho selected him in the rookie draft (with what could/should have been Golden's selection)
- There were many back and forth offers and counters on this trade. It certainly was not consummated in an hour. Although is any Idaho trade?
- On the surface, giving up a $47 dollar Dame who can average 27 and 8 for a couple rookies seems a bit lopsided for Idaho. So why did Golden pull the trigger? A number of reasons.
I'm a Blazer fan and when Golden owns Blazers - they suck. You're welcome Portland
I needed those extra rebounds and steals as those 2 categories are extremely tight. I'm hoping I have enough scoring with Ingram and Middleton due to return soon.
I actually don't enjoy watching Dame anymore as he dribbles around and jacks fall away 3's
Giddey could be a long-term keeper. He's 19 years old and already averaging 10-6-6 with 1.5 steals
If I have to suffer through watching OKC games because I have SGA - I might as well have their likely 2nd best player already as well.
Duarte is another $1 depth player in Golden. With all the injuries and health issues, I needed a body that could play any given week if needed.
OK, enough about the deal, I will move on...
A lot of players are missing time to positive covid test results and close contact tracing. It's proving to be a bit of an issue already as JBL team have lost man games as guys get sat down for 10 days mid-week. Guys like Tobias Harris, Khris Middleton, Joel Embiid, Jakob Poeltl and many more are missing games and it sucks to not have them playing for their respective teams.
Maui continues to hold firm atop the standings. It's exciting for Trev and this is probably the longest stretch (in recent memory anyways) that his squad has been on top of the league. Trev is an original owner in the JBL. Many of you know that when the JBL began it was all down by manual entry of the NBA stats into Excel (and then ultimately the Don Nelson program).
https://www.designdepot.com/nelfandc.html
My dad would go across the border to Point Roberts every Tuesday and pick up the USA Today as it had the full team-by-team page of NBA stats. It was Trev and I that would go through all the JBL teams and figure out the weekly stats player by player. We would then print out the weekly stats and distribute the paperwork to all the JBL owners. Maybe Trev doesn't watch as much hoops as some of us or maybe he doesn't know all the players - his persistence and willingness to "play JBL' every year is unrivalled.
I was also trying to think of all the team names Trev has gone through. Lubin My Pole and BC Budz (another theme team) immediately come to mind. However, there was another early team name - something like ManChowder or something like that because he was dating a girl with the last name Crowder and we just made it dirty. What was it Trev? Do I have that right? ManChowder? And was there another team name I'm forgetting? Ultimately, the team moved to Maui because if they weren't going to win the JBL title at least it would be sunny and warm as they played along. All that said, I'm happy for Maui to be on this early season heater. He did a great job at Auction and could be a serious contender for years to come with LaMelo and Mobley as his superstar keepers. Go on Maui!
Maybe it's just me but I find some pleasure when I see a Free Agent get signed for a big dollar amount and then see that the team could have had him for $1. I don't know why that still makes me smile after all these years. It's like, Oh, nice signing, but you could have saved $15 bucks.
On the FA amounts, while we are just 15% of the way through the JBL season we have collectively spent 35% of our FA dollar allotments for the season. No surprise there really.
Some random thoughts to finish out this episode:
- My title favourite is still French. He's high 800's and he's missed a lot of games from LeBron and Jaylen Brown and will get back Isaac and Klay at some point. Just saying. Watch out.
- Chilliwack will win the Points category. No question. Look at those scorers. He did go over 200 points the other night and only had 9-10 active players.
- Bellingham opened the FA purse strings and signed Kevin Huerter last night. This meant the end to Marvin Bagley's time in Birch Bay. The former #2 pick refused to check into a Kings game the other night and has played just 1 game this year. Remember he went 2nd in that 2018 draft behind DeAndre Ayton. Luka went 3rd; JJJ went 4th; Trae Young went 5th; and then guys like Wendell Carter, Collin Sexton, Mikal Bridges, SGA, Miles Bridges and Michael Porter Jr all went in the top 15 picks. Look further down and you find Robert Williams at 27 and Jalen Brunson at 33. All better picks than Bagley at this point. Now, that said, if the Kings trade Bagley - I anticipate a rush to the FA wire again.
- Golden having a really bad week as I patiently wait for Brandon Ingram and Khris Middleton to return.
- Juan is quietly hanging around too despite not having Sexton, MPJ, and LeVert playing many games. They also have Thomas the Tank coming back in a month or so. Watch out for Juan de Fuca.
- Here come the Kok. Up 84 points so far this week despite getting nothing from Ayton or newly acquired Tyrese Haliburton. Big weeks/years from Edwards, Barnes, Dejounte and Donovan have stroked the Kok to some early season success. If I was doing an updated power rankings this team would be a top 6 squad easily.
- Our defending champs are anxiously waiting for the Ben Simmons trade to happen. Brussels has room to move in all the categories that Simmons will provide. ATO, steals, rebounds and FG%. When Big Ben gets moved, keep an eye on the Brussels squad.
- The other team that still projects well is the Seoul squad. It's really hard to predict how good this team is when they cannot stay healthy. They just got Siakam and Jrue back but now Butler goes down. They are still waiting for Zion and who knows when he'll be back. Hopefully he has some Doctor Scholes comfort inserts in his shoes to soften the pounding because those feet of his are going to be sore.
- I always support the local teams so it's been nice to see the Vancouver squad doing so well to start the season. Being on the left hand side of the JBL scoreboard seems to indicate 'hope' and 'relevance' so there's that. Now, despite the hot start, the Jizzlies are losing Vucevic for 10 days and Kelly Olynyk for 4-6 weeks. It will be interesting to see if their depth can handle these losses.
- I have to touch on Idaho of course too. He's got essentially a Big 5 with the likes of Gobert, Lillard, Fox, Trae, and Booker. If I did the NBA2K simulation again I think this group of 5 would do quite well. The question will be around whether he can find enough depth from a forward group to produce some decent numbers. It will be interesting to see how many FA's he can go through til he finds the right combination. This week's candidates were Jae Crowder, JaMychel Green, Derrick Jones Jr, and Furkan Korkmaz. Crowder's already been dropped and the next man up is Jaden McDaniels (who I really like by the way) to have a go.
- The Arctic squad continues to hang around too. Crikker's done a decent job of trying to balance out his roster after this usual draft night approach of loading up on superstars. The Tyrese Maxey acquisition from Brussels has helped him. He essentially gave up the #8 rookie pick (Sengun) for Maxey. I'm sure the Arctic is hoping the Simmons trade doesn't bring back another point guard. TJ Warren is coming back and could be a major boost to the team if he can stay healthy. Imagine if Kyrie just went and got the vaccine?
- What can I say about Norfolk? He's up 75 points this week so getting Kemba, Porzingis and JJJ get some credit for that.
OK, that's it for me this week...back next week where I will look at the biggest surprise player (good or bad) for each JBL team so far this season.
Enjoy the weekend!
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