stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

would love to be traded back to the team for who i refused to play

Wouldn’t read much into the Giannis thing, he says stuff like that every off-season. If Milwaukee stays competitive he will stay, if they do a 2-3 year rebuild post Khris/Jrue/Lopez he’s out. Idk the way I see it they kind of have to kick into a solid core or nail some trades in the next few years

might be one of those situations where he re-signs because they can give him the most money and then when they're not as good a year or two later asks for a trade

idk doing a whole feature story w/ a photoshoot in the NYT to announce he isn't resigning and might leave and then giving a nonsensical reason as to why rings alarm bells for me

the intractable issue here is that the bucks are mortgaging their future in order to maximize the present except giannis is looking at that future going "yeah idk about all this..." even if they won again i wonder if that would give him even more license to leave -- what more could you ask him to do for the bucks. he just seems like a guy who wants to experience something new in his career

honestly what it reminds me of is how lebron started paving his way out of miami by leaking to the press that he was mad about things such as the heat using the amnesty on mike miller, engaging in power battles w/ riley etc. and then when he leaved portraying it as a grand calling to return to cleveland, which i'm sure had truth to it, but he conveniently left out the part where he was ditching an aging broken down team to create one whose second and third best players were, at the time, 22 and 26

yeah this bucks roster is aging out and theres no easy way to reload is what it boils down to

New: @MarcJSpears shed some more light on Jayson Tatum's recruiting attempt with Damian Lillard as the All-Star guard remains intent on a Miami deal https://t.co/kppGQCCj9v

— Brian Robb (@BrianTRobb) August 31, 2023

https://i.imgur.com/l8WQsAL.png

good analysis

"Boston has beaches, too"

Not sure this makes the Harden situation clearer, but it seems a lot of this is Harden being a weirdo and/or just not accepting where he is in his career:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/38335993/inside-feud-james-harden-philadelphia-76ers

lol this is so dumb

With no other strong suitors, Harden was in a difficult position.

His best leverage was a loyalty play with Morey, who made his career in the NBA by seeing Harden's brilliance early and then empowering him throughout an eight-year run in Houston. Morey had signed Harden to three contract extensions in their time together, including the richest contract in NBA history at the time. He tried to trade for Harden almost as soon as he took the Philadelphia job in November 2020.

But now, when it mattered most, Morey wasn't taking Harden's calls.

"James felt like Daryl was ghosting him," one source close to Harden said. "He felt betrayed."

Rather than wait for Morey and the Sixers to present whatever offer they had come up with once free agency opened July 1, Harden and his representatives, Mike Silverman and Troy Payne, decided to pick up his $35.6 million player option before the June 30 deadline and ask for a trade.

Better to take the guaranteed money for the 2023-24 season than be forced to accept whatever offer the team made him.

The Sixers were stunned at Harden's decision, sources said, insisting to him and his representatives that they had been distant only because they were just hit with the largest tampering fine in NBA history and that they had every intention of re-signing him, as soon as the rules allowed.

But Harden was already too far gone.

"James takes things very personally," another source close to Harden said. "When he feels like he's been wronged, he can be very stubborn."

tho i guess the ghosting story could just be a stand in for philly making him an offer early that he didnt like since theyre not allowed to do that

kinda amounts to the same thing either way harden wants a contract that no ones giving him

https://a3.espncdn.com/combiner/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2023%2F0906%2Fr1220637_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg&w=1140&cquality=40&format=jpg

That is at the core of all this I think.

yeah this bucks roster is aging out and theres no easy way to reload is what it boils down to

― lag∞n, Wednesday, August 30, 2023 12:09 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

not really sure what they can even do they gotta luck into a young superstar somehow. so how do you do that

wouldn't mind if Giannis had sort of a LeBron style career arc where he ditches Milwaukee for some superteam and then comes back once they've reloaded. obv I would love for him to stay forever but he got us a title so I think he's earned it. had Bron won one in Cleveland before "The Decision" I bet that whole thing would've gone over a lot smoother

also not doing the decision tv show lol

bucks bottoming out while giannis is on a super team for one contract is def the move

not sure giannis' connection to milwaukee is exactly the same as lebron's and cleveland... but i guess anything is possible

lebron is from cleveland and giannis is from milwaukee

maybe they can relocate the entirety of athens to somewhere in wisconsin

the thing i liked about the shelburne harden story is that it points that this really all started last offseason in that harden taking less in anticipation of his next extension was a consolation prize of sorts for not being offered the mega extension then. so harden already had it in his head that the sixers didn't value him as an untouchable piece, and his whole unselfish playmaker thing this year was a charade he didn't believe in, or was possibly even a passive aggressive one. that would explain the whole houston stuff from around xmas -- the betrayal had already happened. the story came out of nowhere to us, but for harden it had been percolating for 6 months

there is obviously an element of harden not adjusting his own understanding of who he is as a player... but the sixers gravely misread the situation too. either morey fundamentally didn't understand the person he had employed for 10 years or he way overestimated his own ability to clean up the mess he knew he was making. either way he maneuvered the sixers into a ditch that feels deeper than the one they were in after the hawks series

in all seriousness it does seem like giannis has some sort of connection to the place, but who knows what happens once he goes to his miami, a bigger part of it really is roster building, the cavs were in a great spot to welcome bron back and miami was slipping then he left once the cavs were cooked, i wonder where hed even go teams better start getting ready, as weve seen its not easy absorb a player on a huge deal and still be good

his whole unselfish playmaker thing this year was a charade he didn't believe in, or was possibly even a passive aggressive one.

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, September 6, 2023 12:17 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk know if it was a charade but its def not in his nature im sure he didnt like it, and then once he didnt get enough credit from the media, allstar game, and then finally a big contract he was mad, if that stuff had lined up better maybe he wouldve warmed to the role, and tbf he did deserve more credit imo he played great, but it was really the same old thing that was the problem, a little something called the nba playoffs

too bad for him the nba isnt more like soccer where the regular season is king then the playoffs are a separate tourney called the finals cup maybe adam silver is trying to make it that way its better in a lot of ways

in all seriousness it does seem like giannis has some sort of connection to the place, but who knows what happens once he goes to his miami, a bigger part of it really is roster building, the cavs were in a great spot to welcome bron back and miami was slipping then he left once the cavs were cooked, i wonder where hed even go teams better start getting ready, as weve seen its not easy absorb a player on a huge deal and still be good

― lag∞n, Wednesday, September 6, 2023 12:21 PM (one hour ago)

yeah it will prob be hard for the bucks to replicate getting the no 1 pick three times in 4 years including immediately before giannis' planned return...

an interesting alternate history i've never seen anyone dig into is what would have happened had the cavs gotten, say, the 5th pick in the wiggins draft instead of the first. does lebron go back anyway if it's basically just him & kyrie? the miami thing was prob dead in the water. does he look for an entirely new franchise?

those 3 cavs #1s turned out to be pretty awful overall, but it was good enough at the time

well kyrie was a pretty great no 1 pick. but they certainly sold high on wiggins. though prob bought high on love too

kyrie not exactly great for a no 1 but prob above average basketball wise, points deducted for being an alltime team cancer, wigs well below average and bennett obvs a bust

Giannis's connection to Milwaukee isn't like a typical superstar, he didn't seem to know much about the NBA or America in general (famously only finding out about Milwaukee and Wisconsin after he'd been drafted) so this is kind of like his "hometown" in a sense

he's also a huge part of Bucks history in a way that he couldn't be with more storied franchises, I mean the guy debuted as a teenager when the Bucks were the worst team in the league, he got better and better and after only a few years became the main guy, and then they became the best team in the East for a few years and won a title with him at the center of everything, I mean regardless of what the guy does next he will be the man everyone thinks of when it comes to the Milwaukee Bucks for the next 50 years. he's already done more in a Bucks uniform than Kareem did and there's no one close after that.

50 years seems kinda pessimistic idk. cant think of too many teams where their 70s star is still the guy

guess it depends whether his career winds up closer to LeBron or Dirk, def feels like he could go down as a Top 5 all time dude though I admit Jokic is kinda looking the same way right now

giannis inability to improve on his weaknesses portends a weaker than might be expected back half of his prime, maybe

kyrie not exactly great for a no 1 but prob above average basketball wise

― lag∞n, Wednesday, September 6, 2023 2:33 PM (three hours ago)

in the two decades between the years 2000-2019, i have kyrie as the 6th best no 1 overall pick

the guys i have ahead of him are: lebron, yao, dwight, d rose, and brow. i have kyrie over blake griffin but you could argue for blake if you want. the rest of the list is kenyon martin, kwame brown, bogut, bargnani, oden, anthony bennett, wiggins, KAT, ben simmons, fultz, ayton and zion. not exactly an amazing list.

i think we got a bit spoiled in the 90s w/ like shaq, c webb, duncan etc.

youd like to get a superstar at number 1, instead you get kyrie, above average for the spot but not great

and it turns out hes a shithead

the problem with kyrie of course is that you have to deal with kyrie being around

idk know if it was a charade but its def not in his nature im sure he didnt like it, and then once he didnt get enough credit from the media, allstar game, and then finally a big contract he was mad, if that stuff had lined up better maybe he wouldve warmed to the role, and tbf he did deserve more credit imo he played great, but it was really the same old thing that was the problem, a little something called the nba playoffs

― lag∞n, Wednesday, September 6, 2023 12:25 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

you know the strange thing about harden specifically is that one of the toughest things about evaluating players is trying to imagine how they’d do in different contexts — harden’s played with other stars, on his own, as the primary scorer, as more of a setup guy…and he still is a massive liability in the playoffs

guess it depends whether his career winds up closer to LeBron or Dirk, def feels like he could go down as a Top 5 all time dude though I admit Jokic is kinda looking the same way right now

― frogbs, Wednesday, September 6, 2023 4:26 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglin

solely because I feel like starting a fight…jokic is gonna age so much better than giannis. though there’s an outside chance jokic just hangs it up at 30 and does his horse stuff

you might be right, Jokic can actually shoot and I can see Giannis getting hurt a lot in the future. he recently said he still feels that knee hyperextension he somehow played through in the finals

continuing to hate his natural position

Anthony Davis reportedly told Lakers he wanted to play less center this season https://t.co/EGIcy8rQyt

— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) September 7, 2023

The Nikola Jokic experience has AD desiring a different position. 😂 https://t.co/0xOquxJv5G pic.twitter.com/OAGiUtsN1J

— WADE 🏆 (@Its_Wade) September 7, 2023

some ridiculous shots in there

my friend has a brewery and they've been doing a lot to be a Wolves gathering spot, so I ended up going to it last night when they were hosting The Dane Moore Show (my main Wolves podcast) who recorded there live with...Craig Kilborn! Kind of wild for my old ESPN memories.

get the sense he just kind of fucks around and hangs out nowadays, he dropped so many names it was hilarious, but respect for just fucking off and not working.

https://i.postimg.cc/ncCf1YR7/20230907-181057.jpg

very tall!

ok

Heat reportedly favorite to sign Kelly Oubre, but only if they trade for Lillard https://t.co/tKbfvg7rVj

— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) September 12, 2023

and this

Damian Lillard will not report to training camp if he’s traded to a destination other than Miami, per @ShamsCharania

“If a team, like Toronto for instance, were to trade for Damian Lillard, I do not believe Lillard would even report.”

(Via @TheRally ) pic.twitter.com/bZyyh6COuz

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) September 11, 2023

what a world

do the heat feel like they would need to balance things out because lillard would make them too good?