The Whiteboard: Meet the NBA Bad Takes Hall of Fame class of 2020

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I used a basketball-less Monday night to finish season 1 of The Mandalorian, cramming in the final three episodes in one extended hate-watching session. Running six months or more behind the zeitgeist is kind of my norm, but I also appeared to be on an island with this one. I thought it was an absolute dumpster fire but was told in Slack that this take belonged in my personal Bad TV Takes Hall of Fame.

Inspired by that idea, I decided to assemble a few terrible basketball takes to be inducted as the inaugural class of the NBA Bad Takes Hall of Fame. It’s a small but prestigious group of honorees.

LeBron should be the MVP because Giannis lost in the playoffs

This take is built on the premise that time and space are not constant, but rather metaphysical play-doh that can be reshaped by force of will.  The MVP Award recognizes achievements from the regular season. Giannis Antetokounmpo was the best player in the regular season by a significant margin. The case for LeBron was, somewhat famously, “he’s 35.” The Bucks losing in the playoffs might change how you feel about or perceive what Giannis did in the regular season but it doesn’t actually change it.

Bam Adebayo, Nikola Jokic and Anthony Davis mean big men are back

All those dudes were in the NBA last season, guy. Big men aren’t back, they never left. They’re just different.

Paul Pierce had a better career than Dwyane Wade

This one came directly from Pierce, whose bias was clearly showing. Pierce played about 10,000 more minutes in his career so aggregate comparisons will favor him. But Wade averaged more points, assists and steals per game over the course of his career. He had a higher career assist percentage and usage rate, with a nearly identical true shooting percentage, even though he wasn’t a 3-point shooter. Wade won three titles to Pierce’s one, 13 All-Star selections to Pierce’s 10, and five First- or Second-Team All-NBA selections to one for Pierce.

The Raptors and Lakers are missing the playoffs

I’ll own the L on the Lakers take. I thought the bench was trash and there was a good chance Davis missed 15-20 games with nagging injuries, increasing the load and injury risk on LeBron. I’ll be at the induction ceremony to put the turd-colored blazer on this one.

But the Raptors, c’mon! Sure, they lost Kawhi Leonard but they had won 59 games the year before with DeMar DeRozan in his place and Pascal Siakam as an unformed lump of athletic clay. It was obvious their ceiling was lower but losing a load-managed Kawhi didn’t exactly rip up their floorboards.

The NBA tried to get (1) Zion in the playoffs (2) the Rockets out before the Finals (3) foreign players to win major postseason awards because of some sort of bias.

This is some serious galaxy brain stuff, except the brain is a bowl of oatmeal.

Lifetime Achievement Award: Kendrick Perkins

So much nonsense, spewed so consistently and for so long. The man is truly a Bad Take legend.

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