Nevertheless, I have a wild hunch that 3 of 4 FF teams will be from the EST.
It is easy to accomplish with seeding.
Put A top CST team and PST and lesser EST TEAMS in the tough half of the bracket, then CAKE WALK THE BEST EST TEAM IN THE EASY HALF OF THE BRACKET.
REPEAT IN OTHER BRACKETS.
@HawkChamp said:
that team was so good and ready to play they would have smoked Carolina regardless
You have: could, woulda, shoulda.
I have: DID!
"The truth is, that team would still have smacked Carolina without Cole."
@HawkChamp
This is an astonishing statement.
Yes you recall references to Cole playing more than ONE VERY CRITICAL FIRST HALF STRETCH AGAINST UNC and i for one only recalled the ONE VERY CRITICAL FIRST HALF STRETCH. He was a non entity most of the season. And that's what we are missing. A highly ranked guy riding the pines being groomed for next year that gets the call in the tourney and scraps to give us necessary energy against an AA!
Those that do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.--G. Santayana
Those that remember and don't heed it might as well just forget it--jay Santayana 1.0
Have the Wichita Alumni moved the Round House to D.C. for the Inauguration????
I do think this is going to be a good test of your advocacy of 4 and 5 guards. If anyone has a good enough defensive brain to defend us it's Huggins.
I have always believed the best way to beat a press is 4 guards and Wilt Chamberlain.
Or some lesser center that can still make them pay when the press is broken. Too often KU has broken presses just fine only to have no big strong enough to go and finish.
Is Landen feeling like that man?
Bragg?
We need it.
If we don't make'em pay, then they've got 40 minutes to brass knuckle us.
Dang, 31/32rds full!!!
Damn, that could be a tough bet to balance!!!!
"dude, there aren’t many guys like that. "
Master Dude, In March it only takes one stretch 4 and there are almost always 1-2 teams in the FF with a stretch 4.
Re Cole--no single player ever won a basketball game. Ergo: No team can win a game without all the guys that played. Period. Clearly Cole was critically necessary, because he played a lot. So the question is: can anyone on this team give it what Cole gave it inside. So far the answer appears no, so Self will have to string the bow differently to give some guy on this bench the big chance at another position and hope KU DOES NOT GET MATCHED UP WITH A STRETCH 4.
My assumption is always that the team that wins the ring never ran into too many matchups it could not handle. Only one team does that each tourney.
Finally, the difference between KU and Nova in March is time zone. My hypothesis is that Nova would not have won last season's March Carney had Nova been located in Topeka.
The Hartman-Kruger strain of IBall has long fundamentally differed from the Sutton-Self version in willingness, even preference,
to depend on 1 guy offensively.
Self would never have let Buddy Hield dominate, as Kruger did.
Lonnie would never have reigned Rush, or Wigs in as Self did.
Hartman just said the object of the game on offense was to score as much as you could, so have your best scorer score as much as possible, since it's what he's going to do in a pinch.
Self says save it for the pinch.
Jordan manifests this difference.
Both ways work.
Et al,
I'm not taking sides in this one. I know everyone is disputing a specific season with better memories than mine, but to redirect slightly, a 7, 6, or 5-man rotation could go deep, but the shorter the rotation, the more the team is vulnerable to bad match-ups, fouls, sickness, injury, cold hand, and broken heart.
So: we are looking at trade offs between a group of players that play the most, because they are the most net productive together most of the time, plus the occasional out of nowhere performance usually needed by a guy who really isn't a regular rotation guy. Thinking here of Cole against UNC in '08.
My point is bench depth has two aspects: frequent rotation, infrequent rotation.
Number in frequent rotation tends to shorten, as competition heightens, because increasingly few of your guys are good enough to keep up with opponents.
But even so, once in awhile there are situations that require you to go to the bench and ask a guy to rise to the occasion.
The '08 team was arguably 3 guards, Rush and 3 bigs, for a 7-man rotation down the stretch, regardless of how many played significant rotation minutes in rotation during the first 2/3s of the season.
But even that 7-man rotation required that one half of one game from one guy to get her done.
So: you can (and Self does) shorten to 7, or 6, sooner or later, BUT...
Self without some quality players beyond that 7-6 shortened rotation is almost certainly going to get clipped over 6 games.
The 2012 second place team was that situation.
The first six played together the best of any six man team I can recall. They were magnificently complementary.
But against U.K. they needed one more guy with D1 talent to come to the rescue for even just that first half...someone that could have afforded to get physical with Gilchrist, or the UK PG, and take them out of their comfort zone that first half. Not great play, but passionately aggressive play with enough raw talent to be out there.
This year's team increasingly appears shy of that kind of player come March, too.
Lightfoot or Coleby do not appear capable of delivering a truly disruptive half in a pinch inside against an All American big that KU has to disrupt to win, as Cole did in '08.
I frankly have no idea how Self has kept winning with Doke out. It's apparently great guard play, using Josh to run their 4s ragged, Landen guarding and boarding, and some weak teams.
But what will Self do against a true stretch 6-9 230 pound 4 that can guard Josh inside and out, and has a money move inside?
The genius seems to have his work cut out for him this year.
The truth is always a work in progress.
@BeddieKU23 said:
How could a network fall so far from respectability
Competition sharpens teams.
ESPN has none.
What a momentous time for Jamari to be in Europe. I hope he takes notes and reports back to his KU fans about what life is like there behind the spun headlines of today. I also hope The Tray can find a vintage Porsche come summer and drive the high country leisurely and stay in some inns. Rock Chalk!
I wonder if Mr. Traylor, if that's his name, truly appreciates the high improbability of this having happened?
And while we're on the topic, where is the Jam Tray and is he playing?
They say they will set odds on most anything.
What's the betting line on 3 of 4 in the Final Four being EST?
Tough call.
Hope they did the right thing.
Wonder why the normal corrective measures for sentencing failed to the point a President had to step in?
The players are going to be very tough mentally.
OU did us a big fat favor.
Thank you, Lonnie.
Now, Huggie is cornered in his own crib.
Wounded animals are dangerous.
Which KU players might be targeted?
Or will it be indiscriminate?
Or is Huggie above all that sort of thing?
Also, Leonard and FSU BEAT ND. Some good is brewing for the 'Noles!!!!
When in doubt, bet the time zones.
It will be interesting to see who President-Elect Trump pardons at the end of his Presidency. Will he pardon like Neocon Bush and Neolibs Clinton and Obama, or something else? It's difficult to assess a President's unspoken base until his pardons.
PHoF
If only Neocon and Neolib Presidents would just pardon the wrongly convicted by the hundreds of thousands (millions?) and not pardon the international drug and arms money launderers that reputedly contribute laundered monies to their campaigns and maybe kill whistle blowers for them after. Oh, and not the pedophile ring members, either.
The launderers and the ped ringer pardons kind of make the do-gooding pardons seem like PR DISTRACTIONS sometimes.
But I'm glad someone found a way to work the apparent political corruption of pardons to the favor of a Jayhawk's dad, assuming he was wrongly convicted.
I am anti anti. 😇
I like my PGs to be able to shoot the trey, so among that group his only peer in the Self era is Sherron.
Sherron did so many great things that I can't put Frank ahead of him.
But Frank makes fewer mistakes and seems a better outside shot. I haven't compared the 3pt%s lately.
Sherron was like Joe Frazier. Bruising.
Frank is like Sugar Ray Leonard. Quick.
They are both superb guards. If Frank finds a way to win a ring, I will have to go with Frank, because he is going to have to do it without Chalmers and Rush, the greatest one-two perimeter punch a KU point guard ever played with.
Barring injury, I still have a hunch that Frank's best years could come in the NBA, as did Nate Archibald and Steve Nash. He has their kind of acceleration and top speed that only NBA players can really keep up with.
Frank is also one of the most superbly conditioned athletes I can recall.
And his rebounding is so phenomenal for his size!!!!!
I believe we should not read too much into recent play.
Self has clearly had his team "working on stuff" in this run of games against the bottom half of the conference
He has clearly been playing his Magnificient Seven into shape to be only seven, when the chips are down.
We must wait till KU plays a top half team in a 2 in 3 set.
And it must be the better team of the two in the 2 in 3 set.
When we see them go out amped up and with a full set of wrinkles bequeathed by Self, then and only then can we be sure of what the sorcerer of fractured syntax and his team can do.
Wizards mislead for virtuous ends.
Devils and demons do it for the love of evil.
Since he won the first half of this 2 in 3 against OSU, the gambler in him will be tempted to see if he can steal one in Ames with another no-amp performance. Because the next four games, five if you count ISU on the back end, are going to require big time efforts. And we know Self thinks you can't get teams up for every game in a stretch of big games. He likes to pick and choose where and when he spends his amps.
Still, what makes most sense is to amp a little for ISU in Ames in order to steal a W early on the road against a top half team; that is Self's MO in the past.
Next, he comes home and relies on homecourt advantage to get a no amp win over a troubled Texas team.
Next, he amps full out in Morgantown to literally steal the conference championship right then and there by stealing a road win against the top challenger.
No amp for noncon UK game. Let the media get his guys up.
Baylor at home a big, humongous amp!!!
Then see if his guys can beat ISU in Allen by themselves with a bunch of wrinkles, but no amp.
Amp and wrinkles for KSU in Bramlage.
No amp for TTech in Lubbock but lots of misdirection wrinkles for Huggie to prepare for the next game.
BIG FAT AMP for WVU in Lawrence.
Baylor in Waco is going to be Self spurring a very tired horse down the back stretch in hopes it sees a chance to ice the title in Waco, fatigued or not.
Cantor in giving all the back ups maximum minutes.
Prepare to win the Conference Tournament.
Number 1 seed.
Save the best each weekend for the best opponent, find a way to win with out an amp against the other team.
Anticipate that the farther KU goes the more likely it is for refs to try to provoke Josh into misbehaving to justify ejecting him in the first half. Self will have to scheme around that.
Final game: get out quick the first half, then muddy it up figuring the refs will favor the opponent with the whistle, slow slowing it down will make it harder for the refs. Get out quick the second half. repeat. KU needs to enter the last 30 seconds five up, or the refs will give it to the EST team.
KU gets the championship despite a slew of bad no calls down the stretch, plus an appeal time out with 4 seconds to go to rest the legs of the EST team with possession.
KU defies the stacked deck.
4-stars are added to the OADs and 5 stars that Self is not allowed to sign.
Self takes another four years, but becomes the first coach in NCAA history to beat the recruiting embargo and win with 3-starts.
Self is given all the OADs and allowed to win ten straight.
Rock Chalk!
@KUSTEVE said:
The turbo charged badball reborn!
That must be the sound of @HighEliteMajor putting his eyes out, even as he attempts to do what he believes is right by our great republic (what ever that may be) by submerging again to duke it out on politics in our great virtual cloud of political discourse beyond. :smiley:
Everyone has relieved me.
Thank you.
Oklahoma, oil shale and Harold Hamm are ok with Donald Trump!
Hamm is on the inauguration committee.
Hamm is in for a dime and in for his Wikipedia-reputed $11.3 billion dollar net worth with President Elect Trump.
If that Wiki page has any credibility, Hamm is a man that puts his oil shale and frackin' money where his mouth is. His net worth is reputedly down from a peak of $18.7 Billion dollars, when he made some hefty contributions to the failed Mitt Romney campaign and so on.
And somewhere along the line it says he settled with his ex wife for $975 Million, or there abouts awhile back in 2012. Whooo weeee, that ought to keep her in mud packs at the club!
Now many Washington political types are probably very interested in Harold Hamm's political and geophysical and energy importance and influence with the President-elect, but NOT jaybate 1.0.
I am interested solely in his gifts to OU and what his vision is for the danged OU Sooners basketball program.
Someone in Oklahoma is clearly smart enough to pick up Lon Kruger for OU.
That worries me.
That same someone might also be smart enough to trade up to Bill Self.
Mr. Hamm is one of those rare natural born geniuses (a son of share croppers, he apparently didn't go to college, but instead got right to work and saw the potential waaaaaaay back for hydralogic fracturing and horizontal drilling out in Montana and North Dakota).
And I'll be danged if Mr. Harold Hamm didn't get honorary degrees from Northwestern Oklahoma University and from University of Oklahoma. Hmmmmm. Mebbe KU should give this midwestern, red clay dynamo an honorary degree, too? We got coal in Kansas, right?
Anyway, Mr. Hamm, who's name has been mentioned occasionally as possible SecEn under Trump needs to be watched like an eagle to make sure he doesn't take too strong of an interest in our marvelous Okie basketball coach.
I don't know much about Mr. Hamm. I don't know if he thinks all balls should be oblong, or if he enjoys Mr. Iba's game.
But I reckon the KU Basketball Intelligence Agency ought to gather some intel to make sure Bill is safe.
Mr. Hamm reputedly lives in OKC.
Where the Thunder are.
Gulp.
Prepare to step outside the box with me.
Hypothesis phrased in a series of questions: What if the powers that be that appear to prefer their champions to come from places other than low population red states in the CST are using the referees to condition the nation's fans during the regular season to view Josh a certain way come post season? What if the powers that be want him viewed as a "problem athlete" who tends to have conflicts with referees, so that if KU does not falter in the March Carney before the Finals, referees can without raising a critical mass of cocked eyebrows simply eject him from the final game, or even an earlier game, and so induce a KU loss?
Now remember: the above is NOT a conspiracy theory, because we know use of "conspiracy theory" as a descriptor/epithet, while referring to potentially real conspiracy phenomena in some cases, refer in most cases to disingenuous smearing.
And I personally hold that conspiracy theory is for suckers in most cases that I hypothesize about. My hypotheses assume no criminal activity is involved; that the activity can be conducted in a legal realm, or at the very least within a legal grey area.
So: I am just proffering a hypothesis.
And it explicitly assumes nothing illegal would be going on.
This would be "tournament engineering" in the regular season in preparation of for enhancing entertainment value of the product in post season.
This would be a form of expectation management likely within the technological capabilities of media strategists, public relations management science, propagandists, and psychological operations specialists.
And lord knows we have a ton of these persons running around thick as well-poisoners in a thirsty country sitting on huge sweet crude oil reserves in need of grabbing through regime change.
I am not telling an engineer something he does not already know.
This is for others.
The human body is a complex system.
At the age of 18 the brain is reputedly a full five years from having all of its neural nets grown in.
Between 18 and 23 it is reputedly routine for males not only to alter their weight, but also their musculature. During this period growth spurts occur, but are never certain.
Between 18 and 23, hormonal changes reputedly set in motion in the earlier teen years are often reputedly still playing out in the human developmental process.
Between 18-23 a large amount of psycho-social development is reputedly occurring.
Between 18-23 many environmental insults and many effects of medical insults are are reputedly accruing and playing themselves out in terms of human development.
Thus, what he we have is the complex system of a human body going through a complex developmental phase.
Even under a best case scenario, the best medical, training, and dietary experts are intervening in a constellation of complex systems in which complexity will with high confidence trigger a significant number of unforeseen consequences, when even the most carefully calculated interventions are made.
But D1 sport imposes on one of these players (note: a player that is in effect a constellation of complex systems in dynamicl states) a tremendous amount of stress that in turn likely compounds in a significant number of cases whatever unforeseen consequences occur.
The significance here is that adverse, or at least unanticipated, reactions to dietary interventions, especially when coupled with dietary supplements and various kinds of medications, would appear almost an inevitability occasionally.
So: I think it is prudent of fans not to jump on underperforming players and infer they are not some how giving there all, or that they have some how cracked under pressure, or have less ability than expected, or have chosen immaturely in how to be a teammate, when medical and injury issues are significant possibilities.
And there is some evidence in the past to suggest that only some kinds of medical and injury problems are completely and accurately reported, while others are unreported, or underreported.
Not sure why the injury and medical speculation appears to be first ignored, then both marginalized and treated so sensitively in discourse here. That said...
While I thank you for the clarification (if correct), 30 or 40 pounds appears likely to be insignificant to the discussion of Bragg's performance in terms of performance. Now, if Bragg had gained something less than 10 pounds without a managed diet I probably would not have mentioned weight gain even as a merely hypothetical issue, as I also did at 40. But since team publicity through media made an issue of his substantial weight gain in the off season it would seem justified to consider it for hypothesis as a possible driver of his difficulties.
Next...
My recollection of Withey's apparrent shift at times to yellowed skin is a recollection of watching Withey's skin coloration appear to vary several years ago during one of his seasons when he played little and was reputedly on a weight gain regimen. I was observing on an apparently normally functioning large home tv screen connected to a reputable cable tv service provider not recalled to be known for supplying content that made some players skin tones appear to stay constant over the course of a season and others to appear to develop a yellowish cast. It's appeared to me a recalled observation worth noting. Data inclusiveness seems a virtue .
FWIW, independent observations sometimes vary from, or even contradict the official, or professionally managed data set observations and assessments.
It doesn't necessarily mean the professionals are wrong, but it sometimes suggests a benefit revisit the apparent differences.
And as we have learned many times in considering scientific evidence, professional scientists sometimes revise there explanations when additional observations arise suggesting a need to revisit previously analyzed data. And I am here excluding the possibility of malfeasance; which is not an issue I wish to consider.
@REHawk said:
He will be off and away before much of that re-calibration could take effect.
You don't go a marriage counselor with a one night stand. :smiley:
Everyone is doing it again.
They are torturing themselves trying to come up with complicated psychological, behavioral, developmental, and team strategy kinds of explanations.
The probable driver, as usual, for persistent, anomalous under performance is unreported injury or medical condition.
I don't see why everyone exhausts every other conceivable possibility before inferring injury or medical condition.
When they used dietary supplements to try to turn Withey into a 20 pound heavier banger than he was, his body appeared to rebell from the treatments. He turned yellow intermittently. And no one to this day has ever explained it. They even appeared to use stress fractures as a way of not talking about his bizarre coloration changes. Finally Pollard stepped in and said let him play skinny and block shots. Withey blossomed.
Bragg has added 40 pounds, which is a scat pot lot of weight.
Too bad Jeff's out surviving and not around.
Bragg doesn't symptomize any thing obvious to the camera...
...except he can't play as well as he did, when he was 40 lbs lighter.
But I haven't thought to study him closely, because I just assumed he was a 4star taking the normal time to blossom as a junior.
But those that think he should be playing better now and so are inventorying an extensive list of long shot explainers...
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Bet injury or medical.
Next would be life threatening trauma in his family back home.
For myself, I think he's just a slow developer because he had a long way to come.
Luca got 12 boards in 30 mpg. Put Frank in the post and he would average 14-16 rpg
Ah, a very apt reference at this precarious moment of our republic apparently being put through destabilization and perhaps even (pray to god it does not happen) regime change outside the scope of typical post-election constitutional process, as occurred in Weimar once upon a time, some years after these lyrics of Mack the Knife were performed and became so popular in Berlin in 1928.
For the unfamiliar, @KUSTEVE quoted lyrics to "Mack the Knife" by Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht with music by Kurt Weill (note: both of whom later wound up working in Hollywood) from a 1928 musical "The Three Penny Opera," based on John Gay's earlier "The Beggar's Opera."
I have always been fascinated that violently decadent left wing entertainment sometimes foreshadows (or mirrors) cultural decline and destabilization that then later leads to right wing coups. Sometimes I wonder if it is an orchestrated dynamic. I sometimes imagine the private oligarchy, which believes in nothing but itself, leads with the left, and then delivers a haymaker with the right. Or sometimes vice versa. But mostly first left, then right. Hmmm. But how would one begin to demonstrate such a dynamic, eh?
Thank you. Womance will do!
I'd like to, but it I just can't bear to study darkness--sport and politics-- much further for awhile. Even Gandolph needs to take a blow once in awhile. Need to recharge the batteries with some truth and beauty.
Et al,
Since "bromance" has apparently been coined to make containable (i.e., to infantilize) the sanctity of male friendship, what shall be coined to similarly diminish the sanctity of friendship among women?
Sismance?
Teammaidens?
If you add malted barley and/or grain to good water, distill and age in a properly charred oak barrel; then yes; else probably not..
@HighEliteMajor offers red pill, or blue pill.
I have distilled it a little further: doily, or no doily.
(Note: Spelling correction of doily for @JayHawkFanToo..)
@BeddieKU23 said:
Shaka has recruited Coleman for a while, it sounds like they have a strong relationship
Ah yes, we know what Self recruiting highly ranked players for awhile and having strong relationships with them does for Self regarding PGs and 5s.
Actually I don't always say that, but let's pretend I do.
Which is more likely over the long run: shoes and agents and incentives, or staying home to be close to parents? We have to rule out PT, because Frank is graduating, right? And why would it be the TOP 5 players at the 1 an5 positions prefer to stay closer to home, but guys at the 2, and 3 prefer to play far away at KU?
No, say it ain't so!
It's really all a product of a young man preferring the high culture and arts of Austin (?) and coaching charisma of a second rate coach at a football school (formerly) and some PT, to a hall of fame nominee and winner of a ring and 12 consecutive conference titles and one of the five best basketball schools in history plus a great campus with great looking women and exciting things to study and a graduating point guard. And maybe the new CIA director, who wants to ramp up torture!!
Ummm, ok. Torture is a crime against humanity, but he's not confirmed yet.
It must be this player wants to be close to his friends. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
There aren't any AAU coaches steering kids. Pitino was just making that up. And it's just a coincidence Slick and Louisville got hit with Escortgate shortly after, right?
Have you noticed how all the talk of shoes and agents has largely and conspicuously subsided again? No one is saying we put all the bad actors in jail and cleaned up the game, are they? Guess I missed that report on ESPN.
This is the recurring pattern of documented asymmetries and corruption in college basketball history since the advent of the big shoe era. Asymmetries and corruption surfaces. Talk. Then nothing done. Then no talk.
Not a single new rule was written, or enforced, that I recall, that fundamentally would change the admitted asymmetric influence of shoes and agents on the game, yet now everything is back under the rug, er, uh, normal.
Hmmm.
It's like all the big, bad shoeco-agency complex had to do was flex its muscles with a couple years of apparent long stacks and then all it had to do was appear to promise not to do those long stacks any more and all the bowing non-stacks apparently knuckled under and said, "Yes, master, yes, master, whatever you say, sir. Just please don't threaten what little stature we have any further, and we'll all look the other way again, sir."
I don't mind if you don't wish to discuss it, on the grounds that doing so is perhaps futile, or that we're in a St. Christopher moment, but why pretend? Why build up a denial fantasy about it? It's not that painful to live with. And if we keep the denial glasses off, we might catch them red handed some time. Why give them the comfort of thinking we're in denial?
Why not at the least be like the city of New Orleans. Savor the apparent corruption. Be proud of it. Indulge in it. Say it's just how it is, Jimbo. You can't waste your whole life trying to catch them, Jimbo. Enjoy the etouffe. Have a Mardi Gras about it. Maybe a March Carney. Wink about it. Blow up the dikes to save the rich neighborhoods occasionally. During the flood and black out send in some private contractors and settle some old scores. Play some Dixie Land. Make fun of it all with the double entendre of Jazz. Say it's all just a lotta jazz.
But why pretend The Big Easy is clean? The awful shizzle Bob Knight and others exposed back in the late 1980s to 2000 was NEVER fixed that I recall. The good guys apparently lost.
They are still apparently losing.
Self, arguably now the best coach in the game, certainly one of the three best, can't sign a top 5 -PG or 5.
But every once in awhile things BREAK GOOD.
And we gotta be ready to capitalize.
Things broke good for the framers of the Constitution. They caught a break and weren't all hung. WHETHER YOUR FOR OR AGAINST TRUMP, things broke good for him and despite the one attempt, many threats, and speculation it's coming, he hasn't been assassinated yet! The Crown's been trying to subordinate us ever since, but undoing breaking good is as tough as undoing breaking bad.
The private oligarchy wants us to buy into BREAKING BAD, because it makes us soooooo much easier to treat like goyim, er, cattle. If we loath ourselves and expect the worst and lace it all over with doilets of denial they can spend a lot more time in the Carribean on their yachts.
It's ok to give up the pursuit of justice, as hopeless, but why put the doilet on it for the bastards?
Rock Chalk!
Phof
@BeddieKU23 said:
Texas is the heavy favorite to land Matt Coleman, Top 30 PG
Who can take recruiting seriously anymore? Why would a Top 30 PG prefer Texas and Schlocka to KU and Self in basketball straight up? It's like preferring Texas over Alabama in football.
The soul of recruiting is the sole.
I enjoyed your take and your challenge to some of the players is probably close to what Self is saying to them. He probably picks a different player each game and says: you've been looking pretty good in practice; this could be a good matchup for you; this could be your night to break out. Be ready.
A great owner, GM, and coach are necessary for a great player to win a few or a bunch of NBA rings.
THERE ARE VERY FEW TIMES WHEN THE PLANETS, MOONS, AND MONOLITH ALIGN AS AT THE END OF 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.
Thus, the odds of both getting the brass ring are slim.
But if injuries stayed away, both could become all stars for many years and surely one would get lucky and go on a roll.
Embiid has the edge because he can already do all the things centers have to do to be dominant and win rings.
I haven't tracked Wigs, but great as he is, its tough to lead teams to rings from the wing without a great outside gun. Even MJ had to get nearly 40% to dominate. The 36-38% years he had to have great seasons from Pippen. Can Wigs? To be determined.
Wigs is so good already that he has to hold the edge in probability of making it to the BHOF.
But JOEL can carry a team and the other roles are easier to fill with him. He has a sliver of an edge in getting a run of rings.
But this is like choosing between two Rolls Royces.
They are both great rides.
It would be at about this point that Old Blood and Guts would attempt to restore yourself to self respect, but here the metaphor ends.
At ease.