stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

no saudi, no credibility

what cba city has the best strip clubs? might need dylannn to weigh in on this

Xxxpost on the China stuff at least what I saw on Twitter was from a fake account

James Harden's tour across China continues, and after calling Philadelphia 76ers president Daryl Morey a liar earlier this week, the former league MVP is now flirting with the idea of playing in China at some point. It's unclear if he meant actually signing with a team in China to play a season, or if he would be interested in the NBA hosting a game in the country like the league has done in the past. But it's clear that he has a fondness for the fans in the country.

"Every time I come here, the love is just like ... it's crazy, you know what I mean?" Harden said, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. "So I feel like they deserve to actually see me come play here. ... Love is always crazy here."

gotta give the guy credit, quite a card to play in his battle with morey to juice the china stuff

i think harden might have overtaken kyrie for (current player) top spot on the messy drama leaderboard. its really close anyway

steel sharpens steel

yup, kyrie saw harden was coming for the throne and had to go to twitter to stand up for harden lol

i will say, in harden’s defense (words i never utter) he did realize brooklyn had turned into a complete madhouse and he needed to get away from kyrie. can’t really fault him on that one. and if morey did lie to him than all this is pretty much justified too — he’s really just answering press conference questions honestly… he hasn’t even seemed emotional about any of it, weirdly.

yeah, i have spent a lot of idle thinking time trying to figure out what makes harden tick with this stuff and none of us will ever know for sure, but it seems like he mostly wants to find a balance of compensation, competitive basketball, and comfort level with the organization. he might weight those things a little more equally than other guys. he is also obviously quick to pull the ripcord when he stops liking his situation but there are a lot of people like that out there.

doesn’t he have an agent? isn’t a lot of this stuff the agent’s job?? like maybe harden can focus on his wicked stepback and his agent can focus on compensation, cultural fit etc

ESPN Sources with @RamonaShelburne: The NBA has launched an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding 76ers star James Harden’s public admonishment of franchise’s President Daryl Morey: https://t.co/8CyXFmu4gx

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 19, 2023

lololol second graf contains a sentence that begins like this:

"The league office is believed to be pursuing an understanding of whether Harden was portending..."

you can't investigate something that hasn't happened yet smh

i hate it when someone is portending

xp based on a few hints windhorst has dropped, one group of people who do not have sympathy at all for harden are professional sports agents

you can't investigate something that hasn't happened yet smh

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, August 19, 2023 9:32 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2017/06/25/18/minority-report.jpg

harden had no agent after rob pelinka took the lakers job until earlier this year when he hired representation. the current agent was an ex adidas exec whose main qualification for the job, from what i can tell, is being friends with james harden

it’s hard to say how badly harden screwed up bcuz we don’t really know what his priorities are — if his main objective was making $35m this year than he made the right choice opting in. but it seems like he & the new agent repping his first client made a strategic error bcuz no trade market developed and he’s really at morey’s mercy now. if he tries to sabotage his way out of philly it could kill his career. i also do wonder if morey had made the wink wink extension promise with a very prominent agent instead of harden directly whether he’d still feel able to renege on it

Harden's comments to KHOU after the China video seemed to imply that Harden is mad because of Morey hadn't traded him and cancelled talks with the Clippers, rather than a failure to follow through on the promise of an extension. That could be Harden being cagey, but Harden doesn't seem that subtle.

Also, Harden's desire to play somewhere other than Philly was cropping up in stories in the Spring even before the playoffs. It seems like Harden thought he could get a max deal from anyone and never really intended to come back to Philly, even if they offered him the max.

i’m not convinced he never intended to come back to philly. but i do think at this point it’s obvious that he thought he was going to have a max offer from houston and a big offer from philly and he’d have a choice between where he wanted to go. instead he ended up with neither. whoops

Harden's comments to KHOU after the China video seemed to imply that Harden is mad because of Morey hadn't traded him and cancelled talks with the Clippers, rather than a failure to follow through on the promise of an extension. That could be Harden being cagey, but Harden doesn't seem that subtle.

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Saturday, August 19, 2023 12:35 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

he kind of has to say it's the trade talks because saying it was an implied extension is the thing that would get everyone in lots of trouble. hopefully whoever is advising him at least got him to understand that.

i also do wonder if morey had made the wink wink extension promise with a very prominent agent instead of harden directly whether he’d still feel able to renege on it

― J0rdan S., Saturday, August 19, 2023 12:28 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

good point, seems like morey out maneuvered harden, right into a ditch, classic morey

harden trying to keep everyone out of deep shit. tho if this was actually the source of his anger it would be funny

https://x.com/shamscharania/status/1693656664082096449?s=46&t=delhXlmZBYazm252j4iaFA

timing does match up in that he did it soon after philly said they werent trading him

That's what I was saying last week - Harden's post-China comments make it sound like the China/liar comments were fallout from Morey failing to trade him and now he's stuck in Philly, not because Harden wanted an extension and to remain in Philly. As you said, Harden could be lying to keep everyone out of trouble, but he seems like an emotional guy.

seems like harden is folding like a little punk

For the league’s purposes on the fine, Harden’s comments that he would never be part of an organization that included Morey played a bigger part in the fine, sources said. It touched on the league’s rules concerning public trade demands. https://t.co/AZxe6kKpNv

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 22, 2023

damn 100k

Lol, I thought they were going to fine the Sixers.

ladies and gentlemen the dallas mavericks

Giant fail on three-year deal inked last summer; signed to be starting center and made it to Nov. 4.

$11.7M left on deal; looks like cap hit will be $2,348,324 for next five years. https://t.co/qvqKHmubBS

— John Hollinger (@johnhollinger) August 22, 2023

that deal made zero sense the second it was signed and less sense w/ each subsequent minute passed but at least they're cutting bait on it early

Can't be too many names on the list of players who have been "stretch-and-waived"

luka can't walk until 2027

he can refuse to associate with mark cuban at any time tho

bars

Anthony Edwards admits he wasn’t cool with Steve Kerr trying to bring him off the bench

“He said Dwyane Wade came off the bench when Kobe played. I was like, ‘all right, we don’t have a Kobe.’”

(Via @joevardon ) pic.twitter.com/zp7vUlUx5E

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) August 24, 2023

He said Dwyane Wade came off the bench when Kobe played
He said Dwyane Wade came off the bench when Kobe played
(continues, in the style of Eminem)

Kerr wanted Edwards to play behind Cam Johnson? Come on Steve

Kerr will always find a way to get too cute with it

i wouldn't read a ton into it... it's an ad hoc team of guys who've never played together that went w/ one line up for like... a single scrimmage? and then switched it up to get ant in there. kinda think that's just how these things go sometimes...

oh yeah its def nothing and wouldnt even be mentioned if it wasnt the duldrums of the offseason

speaking of... i need hoops and we're still two months away.

i watched soccer the other day, sad

Kerr will always find a way to get too cute with it

― nobody respects the chair (Spottie), Thursday, August 24, 2023 12:48 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

basically hes a hater, a lot of coaches are like that they cant stand contemporary basketball but they have no choice but to but to submit to its powers

FIBA World Cup starts tomorrow!

edwards is clearly the best player on the roster, kerr is tripping

that team is pretty rough lol, all the euros consider the world cup more important than the olympics but americans like the olympics

so giannis did a whole interview & photoshoot in the NYT to announce that he’s not signing an extension and won’t until he feels comfortable with the direction of the organization, or something?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/sports/basketball/giannis-antetokounmpo-milwaukee-bucks-contract.html

something is off here. they just gave huge contracts to middleton and lopez essentially in order to prevent this exact thing from happening. but he went ahead and did a whole calculated roll out about how he might wanna leave anyway

yeah pretty obviously setting the stage for a soft exit, much smarter than whatever lillard has been doing

the team is just aging out having old middleton and lopez isnt gonna be enough in couple years