Lance Stephenson

[SparzWizard]

And then there was that weird blip in NBA basketball where guys like Hibbert and Omer Asik were highly prized centers... Fascinating.

I forgot all about the Asik talk on here back in 2013/2014. Fun times!

And Josh Smith in 2013 lol!

[trickybilly]

It feels like 20 minutes ago that I was like "yes, trade jaylen and picks for Demarcus Cousins"

Sheesh..

[Kernewek]

Lance Stephenson.

It's funny the guys who have outsize impact on the league for a short stretch and then just disappear. No new NBA fans are likely to know how much Stephenson was talked about for, like, 2 years.

Those late '00s-early'10s Pacers teams had a great roster of "Some Guys" as in "Let's Remember Some Guys":
Jermaine O'Neil
Tyler Hansbrough
Danny Granger
Roy Hibbert

Totally.

Back in, like, 2009 there were serious conversations about who you'd rather have between Granger and Kevin Durant. Crazy.

And then there was that weird blip in NBA basketball where guys like Hibbert and Omer Asik were highly prized centers... Fascinating.

The actual memo is unavailable on the NBA site now: https://www.nba.com/media/Verticality_Plays_Mar_31_2014.pdf but yeah, the reminder to the referees that "the verticality rule is really only supposed to cover jumping straight up and down, rather than what Roy Hibbert is doing" really stymied his career.

For the gif-hungry folks, there's plenty here (written a few months before the memo):
https://www.sbnation.com/2013/12/16/5195960/roy-hibbert-verticality-analysis-indiana-pacers