99 here. Same thought! We had color photography!
2 Likes
Almost as bad is the replays of SD games on new HD TVs. Younguns, I promise the games didnāt look that bad when originally airing!
2 Likes
In my day we only had sepia tones
4 Likes
I donāt know where this belongs but here seems right. I could probably beat 12 year old LeBron.
2 Likes
Hmm. How tall was he at 12?
2 Likes
Two-year old LeBron canāt go left, but still, not taking any chances. Give me one year old learning to walk LeBron.
5 Likes
Oh just realized he was 5ā10ā at 12. Might need to walk that back.
11 Likes
Are we talking my current self multiple knee injuries later or my peak 25 year old self?
Current self - 9āyr old.
Peak self? Prolly 13-14
But would have loved to be on his team in open runs because of his passing.
2 Likes
I need him at like 5ā4ā or shorter to feel really comfortable I think
3 Likes
Google says LeBron started dunking at 14. Might wanna narrow that range to just 13 
To be fair, I never saw you hoop at your peak.
2 Likes
Not a super big deal - I started dunking at 15 - I was 6-1 then ā¦ more referring to the experience and guile I had at 25 - learned so much from 20-25 from pros and college guys in summer runsā¦
But again I was an off the ball mover and shooter so would rather play with himā¦ probably would have the ball in my shooting pocket on his passes over and over
Super random thought and figured this is the only appropriate thread for itā¦ but as time has passed, Iām more impressed with CTBās coaching job with the 2024 team than I was before. May be unpopular here, but I think getting that team to the NCAAT is pretty wild considering the pieces we had offensively.
Reece ultimately carried that team, but our 2nd best offensive player was sophomore iMac who as weāre seeing is less of a Robin that we even thought at the time. No ability to create his own shot or create off the dribble. Then we had Rohde and Dante who were in the mix for worst players in P4 that year, Freshman Buchanan who was awful, Taine who was about replacement level, Ryan Dunn who was 20% from 3 and teams sagged off all year, Bond who was a tweener in our system, and Groves who was probably our 3rd best offensive player (further proving my point).
You can make arguments all day, and theyād be valid, that CTB did not do that team any favors offensively but Iām just not sure how much more juice there was to squeeze out of that roster.
8 Likes
Iām not sure either because we never tried to get points in transition, force more turnovers, or get more offensive rebounds. We never tried anything really, so Iām also not sure.
But where my prior differs, is that I think a better coaching job wouldāve involved trying those things and lots of others.
8 Likes
Agreed. And I said it at the time. Hmm, we have a team with strong athletes at multiple positions who canāt shoot (Reece, Dunn, Bond), and our one shooter (McKneely) canāt get by his man or get himself open. What should we do?
That team was one of our few where running probably made a lot of sense. Dunn, Reece, and Bond would have excelled in transition, and hell, Taine was weirdly good in transition too. McKneely could have feasted on kick-out open threes in transition created by those guys crashing to the rim. But we never even attempted it because we were too stuck in the way weād always done things.
So yeah, Tony did a good job getting a mediocre team (which he assembled by the way, but thatās a separate convo) to the tournament - that is true and solid coaching. But great coaching that year probably would have been trying some more things outside of his comfort zone that fit that roster better. The ceiling was still probably pretty low, but Iām going to guess it was higher than what we got to.
6 Likes
Yeah interesting points. I think the better way to phrase my point is that Tony did probably the best job at squeezing out the highest floor from this team. My take is that the ceiling wasnāt much, if at all, higher than what we ended up doing. But this was classic CTB - sacrificed ceiling at the expense of a high floor.
2 Likes
Interesting (and tangential to this conversation) from @Cuts_from_The_Corner on Tonyās leaning into process over results.
Tony was at his best in the ACC regular season. 2nd best was ACC-T. Then came noncon regular season. And last was NCAA-T.
Tonyās style was better the more we played teams. He was worse when he had less time to adjust.
Iād argue by 2024, there were other bigger issues (mostly talent), but is an interesting unified theory, if you like unified theories (and I do).
6 Likes
My real Delorean wish for 2024 is to have Tony play a super up tempo, pressing, havoc style with Reece, Elijah, Bond, Dunn, and Blake.
We wouldāve been an all time great defense and a crap offense. In other words, same as we were, except an elite defense, not just a very good defense.
8 Likes
I often wished for that very thing. I even think Minor would have played in it well he was pretty good in transition - and it would have better utilized Dante.
That was the best path for that team and iMac could have still gotten some time as a secondary break threat with those players around him.
7 Likes
@Gna2r I love these convos, and hand up, Iām probably not a proper Kihei appreciator.
(There, I said it)
4 Likes
No issues with Kiheis effort - it was always for me the rotations and minutes allocations and my utter frustration with Tony not being able to recruit a high level Acc guard that would start over him.
The whole 2021 debacle with TW not starting all year - either Kihei or Reece should not have started.
Of course Iām a Reece fan but Kihei was probably better overall than him that year - especially if those 80 minutes were more like 27 minutes apiece for those 3 guys.
And I heard we couldnāt get other recruits because no one believed they would have a legit shot to replace Kihei in the lineup.
5 Likes