3rd record breaking triple double

His contribution to the team's performance was very good considering who OKC were missing.

Kid is building nicely!

It's interesting to see some of the better Next Stars replicate their NBL form to the NBA. It tells me that while there is definitely a wide talent and athleticism gap between the leagues (no one with a functioning brain would argue otherwise), there are clearly aspects of our humble NBL that size up well with the world's premier competition.

Offensively at least, the way the NBA game is played it's just easier to put the ball in the hoop - more spacing, less urgency on D with each possession because of the pacing, etc. That was my money worry with Giddey, but he's found ways to keep the scoreline ticking along while knocking down 3s at an OK clip.

IIRC it was Sykes who came out this season and said it was significantly easier to score in the NBA than the NBL. Doesn't take anything away from what Giddey and others have done, but it's just such a different brand of basketball as we see when Team USA tries to adapt to FIBA rules on the fly each tourney that comes along.

Ball and Giddey both being PGs and given the reigns of teams not expected to win much their first season probably helps their ability to showcase their talent more so than other guys especially in a league like the NBA. The one that has impressed me the most has been Tate who has managed to get his numbers despite playing with a bunch of ball hogs (albeit on a bad team)

What an awesome rookie season he is putting together.

I find it hard to believe it is easier to score in the NBA than NBL.

Everyone there is taller, longer, faster, jump higher than players in the NBL. Here Brandon Ashley, Zimmerman, Colton Iverson, Zhou Qi would struggle to guard the pick and role. NBA C's like Capela, Montrezl Harrell and Robert Williams III would probably break up anything CG43, Cotton and Sobey try.

We call Mitch Creek athletic, he would be firmly in the middle of the pack in the NBA.

The only thing is mindset, where some players like Harden place a lower priority on spending energy on D

Couldn't be that they have a lot more space with the 3 point line so far back...

"I find it hard to believe it is easier to score in the NBA than NBL."

Spacing, lots of poor defenders in the NBA, very good offensive players, defensive three-second violation, NBL can knock the ball off the rim, more minutes in the NBA (tired players, conserving energy, more opportunities for scoring players off the bench), until this season lots of foul shots in the NBA, due to the bigger space more opportunity for 3s which they hit a bigger number of

J-Gid!

"NBA C's like Capela, Montrezl Harrell and Robert Williams III would probably break up anything CG43, Cotton and Sobey try."

NBA v NBL games actually showed that not to be true, as those three guys went on scoring tares against NBA teams. Obviously they were exhibition games but I think those three guys have proven they can score against NBA defenses now. If those defenses had scouted them and were geared around stopping them, different story of course. But I think the assertion that NBA C's would break anything up they try isn't obvious to me based on this.

Sixers fan basically summed it up, the differences in the game and on the court itself alone makes it harder to score in the NBL. And we have players openly saying that is the case now.

Spacing, pace, defensive rules and packed schedules would mean that defensive intensity isn't as consistent in the NBA as it is in other leagues.

The "lots of poor defenders" thing though simply isnt true. The reason most talented guys dont stick in the nba is that they can't guard anyone. Sykes has shown he can play one end in the NBA to a rotation player level, but the reason he ultimately won't likely stick is that he cant really guard anyone.

Are there poor defenders in the NBA? Of course. But overall the defensive (and offensive) talent is far superior in the NBA. Any advantage to offensive players is purely from the structural issues rather than talent.

As has been said before, heaps of Euroleague players Doncic most notably) have stated publicly it is far easier to score in the NBA. Might be something in that.

Vic Law said the same thing last season too.

I personally don't think scoring should be easy. I love free flowing basketball but I think the NBA gives the offense a bit too much freedom. I think the NBL has the balance right on that, for my tastes anyway. I mean look at the top dunks of the year - they're all on top of people. Why? Because they HAVE to be. You don't see "pretty" open dunks much in the NBL and that's the way I like it.

I think the "scoring is too easy" in the NBA is valid to a point but over stated. There's no doubt though that in bigger games and the playoffs it steps up a lot, showing that there is a step down in intensity during the regular season.

For me the vastly superior talent in the NBA wins out very easily for my limited viewing time.

Personally I can't watch the NBA it's not proper basketball it's too offence heavy with silly scorelines like 140-130. I know virtually no defence is played during the regular season because they play so many games but that's on them, that's their business if they want to put out a shit product and wait until playoff time to get serious.

I much prefer watching the NBL and international basketball where defence is played and there is a genuine contest between offence and defence.

"I personally don't think scoring should be easy. I love free flowing basketball but I think the NBA gives the offense a bit too much freedom"

With you 100%. I like chocolate, but it doesn't mean I want 3 blocks of chocolate every time I feel like something sweet. To me, that's how the NBA has gone re: offense - too much of a good thing, watered down the product.

Its good that there are products to suit different tastes

@zodiac, you're comment about the so called "lack of defense" in the nba is objectively wrong on all levels, you see scores like that due to 1) more spacing and 2) mimdblowing offensive talent which almost always ends up overwhelming the best defenses, as others have already pointed out before me. You can be a top tier defensive unit and still bleed points due to relentless wave after wave of high quality attacking which is not present in the nbl and intl basketball to the same degree. Furthermore, just like in the nbl, not all nba teams are created equal either, there are a bunch of teams that'll always be tanking at various points ( esp the small market ones) and simply won't have the talent to compete with contending teams which also leads to such a disparity in scoring Not sure why that stupid rhetoric still exist this day, ..

Agree with NBA feeling far too offence heavy during regular season.

On a scale, if NBA is peak-offence and Euro is peak-defence, NBL is around that middle mark. It's a pretty solid compromise IMO.

Free flowing enough to be entertaining, disruptive enough on defence to be entertaining in a "this game is competitive" way.

What an NBA Allstar game is to the NBA regular season, is what the NBA regular season is to the NBL.

Are the best of the best there? Sure. Is the level of bball higher? Sure.

Is it harder to score? No, not really.

I get that better players can, in a way, inherently mean it’s harder to score or get stats.

But for guys that are elite, like Giddey and Ball... well, the extra space, less physical in-your-face D and guys on the end of a pass that’ll knock down shots at a ridiculous rate makes their life easier, not harder.

There’s a difference between an NBL benchie trying to score in the NBA where they’ll probably be too slow/not physically gifted enough to take advantage of the extra space and get punished by the length.

But some NBL players are border-NBA and wouldn’t have nearly as much of an issue and can exploit the basketball style difference like Giddey and Ball.

And on the flip side, nobody is saying NBA stars like curry or lebron would find it harder to score in the NBA than they would the NBL. They’d be able to score completely freely in the NBL probably whilst NBA players at least have the capacity to provide disruption.

So it’s not 100% one way 100% the other, but when people say NBA there’s less defence and it’s easier to score, it’s worth taking on the obvious context associated with it.

"You can be a top tier defensive unit and still bleed points"

No - watch NBA playoffs vs regular season. It's completely different, the defensive intensity is much higher.

NBA has a lot of iso ball, and a lot of “cost-benefit” ratio to it because of 82 games, playing every 2nd game. NBA players and teams are content to offer up the space and not put high levels of effort in because it makes sense to focus on moments that count.

Also, it’s a stars league - the ball runs through stars that expect high volume usage. There’s no appetite for lots of ball movement and shifting defence. There’s no appetitive for stifling defensive effort. Teams aren’t like Duncan’s Spurs.

If you ever watch Euro bball, you’ll see just how dramatically more defensive and slow basketball can be. Not saying it’s a good thing, just saying NBA score lines aren’t just down to sheer offensive talent. There’s a clear stylistic aspect to it.

And it probably benefits the revenue/tv ratings part of things for the NBA too.

I don't think the NBA has poor defenders at all. But the intensity that is played with so many games, the NBA rules on defensive spacing and contact result in a less defensively-focused style of game. It's become even more like an arcade version of basketball. I have to agree that is less appealing to me.

The NBA made some changes to refereeing interpretations for the better this season, but I'd prefer to see it move much further towards FIBA and the physicality of 90s NBA. It won't happen, but I'd like to see the NBA cut the number of games way down and follow FIBA interpretations.

@ket, isn't it obv that the defense would be much better in the playoffs since the playoffs usually feature the best teams in the league who are much closer to each other in terms of talent and experience and kinda cancel each other out in addition to the higher stakes at play ( as you rightly pointed out)??

It's better because they put effort in where they don’t in regular season.

Back to Giddey. He's played, what, 12 games without Gilgeous-Alexander? And he's grabbed a triple double in 3 of them. 25% chance of getting a triple double without SGA.

I really enjoyed the the Olympic basketball and now watch some euro games, I find it so much interesting, tougher than nba, and yes the US are still Olympic champions when there stars turn up, but also play D at the Olympics.

He definitely needed the ball in his hands more early in the season, but you have to balance that with SGA being such a gifted scorer whos several years ahead of him

I think maybe the NBA has too many regular season games. I am sure they have to to justify the outlandish salaries and to appease sponsors but it definitely means the product is a bit lazy for most of the time. I only watch the NBA during playoffs, and even then I sleep on it until the Finals series. The NBA Finals can be absolutely incredible but I find an 82 game season also fairly hard to follow all that closely. They'll never ever do this but if I had control I'd cut the season in half. Every game would be more meaningful, players would be more energized, defense would pick up. I'd also tinker with the defensive rules a bit more to bring it a bit more in line with FIBA basketball but keep the defensive key rules so fans can still have all their pretty, open dunks that they love so dearly. I think if the NBA leaned slightly more towards FIBA/NBL/Euro styles of play while maintaining its court dimensions it would be a better product. In fact if the NBA just looked a bit closer to its 90s rules it would be a better, more competitive product.

Yeah I think just a different interpretation of rules they already have would be fine.

I actually like the defensive 3 second rule. Its far more clean cut than the old illegal defence rule and means your big cant just camp out in the key.

But some of the hand checking rules etc are definitely over the top. Also their clear path/flagrant foul system needs a complete overhaul to be more in line with the FIBA rule (though not the whole way, IMO)

They're likely going to be bringing in a "mid season tournament" with cash on the line for players which will likely be about giving more intensity to some of these mid season clashes (the early stages would be part of the regular season).

While I acknowledge a lot of criticism about the league style in this thread, IMO its overstated and coloured by a little local bias (of course the league I can go watch in person is more fun to watch) but also personal preference.

In the 90s and 2000s when I was going to NBL games every week and unable to watch much NBA, I would absolutely have said that I prefered the local game. Having my own team to follow and watch in person certainly added to that.

Now that my access to both is the same and I don't have a team to follow (which obviously created some of my own bias against the NBL) I watch almost exclusively NBA as it is far more entertaining for me. Do I watch every game? Clearly not, but there's almost always one or two good match ups to choose from every day

Back to Giddey and he's 1-2-1 away from a third straight triple double with a quarter to go in a competitve game vs the Spurs.

Another one

17-10-10. First player since Oscar to get 3 in a row as a rookie. Not bad!

He's like the Rashad Tucker of the NBA!!!

Get Giddey with it!

Definitely too many regular season games in the NBA. It will never change because of revenue reasons (mostly) and for making it impossible to break statistical records (far smaller reason, but still a factor I think). 50 games over the same length of season would make for a hell of a better product.

Congrats to Giddey, it's a hell of an achievement. Like many I guess I thought he might take a year or two to adjust, but he's been sensational. Injuries have been a big factor re: Cunningham and he's had some big performances, but it's almost at the point where you'd say perhaps Giddey the better prospect of the two.

Really too early to call. They're both gonna be great.

I think we can officially "not give a s**t" if Ben Simmons never represents Australia. We have a legit international point guard... that can shoot. Giddey UP!

We need them both to have a chance at a medal

@angush, absolutely not, as good as giddey's playmaking and rebounding have been, he is by far one of the worst defenders in his class and a turnover machine, cade is a far more well rounded player. Giddey is very one dimensional. This draft class is absolutely stacked and even 2nd rounders are performing like lottery picks...

Settle down AngusH, Giddey has been great and can pretty much be guaranteed a good career in the NBA now barring injury, but Cunningham has also been good and clearly has a higher ceiling.

We'll see. Like I said, Cunningham has shown flashes of brilliance when healthy. Giddey has just done something no other rookie has done since the Big O as a 19 year old.

@angusH , yes he has, but these "espn" records are kinda pointless in the grand scheme of things, if you don't go on to have a long, storied career after putting up such records....just look at simmons right now...almost forgotten and out of the league.

I don't think Giddey has proven he can shoot yet. His shooting stats are worse than Westbrook (for example), with his scoring efficiency amongst the worst in the league. Unlike Simmons though, he does shoot so will hopefully improve.

He's ended up being so much better than I thought he would be. Doesn’t force anything, knows his range, rarely makes the wrong play. Imagine if he was spotted into a roster with shot makers and a stud!

His shooting will improve, for sure. He takes mostly good shots and his stroke looks better than with Adelaide. Sub-.300 is not good, but I have no doubt he'll push up into that .333-.375 territory in a few seasons based on what I've seen so far.