stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

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?

lol

wonder if blazers have a deadline to take best available offer, the two obvious ones are start of training camp and the trade deadline, start of training camp seems pretty pointless very little chance someone is gonna step up who hasnt already but its also pretty painless to wait until then so might as well who knows something could change, waiting til the trade deadline is obvs more painful but has a much better chance of producing better results, but also! could produce worse results so theres more risk and more pain, i guess youd have to figure out what the upside of waiting is, i kinda feel like the best deal out there isnt that much better than what miami can offer, but also you never know

maybe you get an additional pick and the picks are better and a player you like better than herro

the shape of the miami deal seems reasonable but then you look at the picks and maybe theyre not that great and is herro even a positive asset on that contract

maybe the blazers know about teams that would offer more if lillard agreed to it and the blazer are just trying to break him idk

the fundamental issue at hand is that the blazers want to get the return they would have gotten for dame two years ago without having done the smart thing and traded him two years ago. they're trying to have their cake and eat it too and the rest of the league is like "sorry but that does not make any sense," because it doesn't. this isn't two years ago.

i've said before that i don't think the blazers will gain much leverage if this drags into the season & they risk losing whatever minimal leverage they currently do have. i mean, they cannot keep dame past the deadline. that just isn't an option. if they think the offers are underwhelming now they really shouldn't try shaving off one of the two seasons left on his contract before his salaries go into the $60m range. so as the deadline approaches, the response from prospective trade partners will be what it is now -- "so what are you gonna do? keep him?" -- except the blazers will have no plausible way of saying "yes," unless joe cronin is so stubborn as to be willing to lose his job, which i guess is possible

the thing they're hoping will happen -- a team will suddenly decide that they do actually need to go over the top w/ an offer for a 33 year old oft injured point guard w/ one of the craziest contracts in the sport -- *may* happen... crazier things have certainly occurred in the NBA. morey, harden, sixers etc etc. but it's pure wishcasting, at this point.

regardless of what dame wants, it makes no sense for a non-contending team to acquire him. he's too old and too expensive. the stuff about the thunder, jazz, spurs etc having assets was always transparently bogus leverage jockeying thru the media

once you look at the contenders in the league it's a bunch of teams who are not going to trade for dame -- milwaukee, boston, cleveland, denver, memphis, sacramento, golden state, dallas etc

you're basically left w/ the usual suspects that, aside from miami, we already know have declined to make real offers for dame, or simply have no assets to do so -- philly, brooklyn, phoenix, clippers, lakers

if portland's plan is to drag this out & hope for a better offer they're basically gambling on like...

-- the nets having a really good season and feeling like they could push to the finals
-- the knicks having a bad season and panicking about their situation
-- the sixers being a disaster and putting maxey on the table (it's unclear to me why this would inspire the blazers)
-- the pelicans being a disaster and david griffin needing to save his job (would dame agree to a trade to new orleans?)

there's only a finite number of teams, it's not like there's a mystery bidder in another country who is gonna come in here and save the day. so idk. maybe it all works out but to me the math isn't adding up

fwiw I think calling dame oft-injured isn’t accurate at all. He missed a lot of time two years ago when he needed abdomen surgery to correct a nagging problem he’d been playing through for years. Since then he’s only really missed time for wear and tear issues and obvious tanking reasons, he’s much closer to an iron man type than in and out of the lineup

either way it's prob prudent to assume the health arrow is going in the other direction w/ someone of his size and age

is herro even a positive asset on that contract

― lag∞n, Tuesday, September 12, 2023 1:37 PM (forty minutes ago)

i think ppl are underrating the fact that he signed his deal pre-cap spike ... i don't think 4/120 is unreasonable for herro when a player like desmond bane signed for 5/207 and all the NBA reporter guys were like, well yeah that's gonna be the going rate for a young core piece in the new cap era. one has to assume that if bane got that kinda deal then tyrese maxey will be asking for the exact same thing. even if he doesn't get any better -- and i do think he's improved every year -- a 25 year old herro making $30m in 2026 shouldn't be unmanageable when there will be plenty of players, including non-all stars, making well into the 40-50 range per year. if you're a team that likes herro, that number should be fine. some teams won't like him, which i get too. but the contract, looking forward from my POV, seems like it will be okay.

I’m past the point of having a real take on what the blazers are up to. Cronin seems high on his own stink, thinking he can out-clever everyone (pat riley being one of the everyones, hubris is cool), meanwhile the clock keeps ticking. Bringing dame into camp will bring a circus nobody needs and a distraction from the obvious post-dame way forward and is the worst way to start the scoot regime. Actually playing dame while waiting for “the better offer” (??) risks injury to the old guy you want to trade, wastes development time, and could also end up winning the team a bunch of games they don’t want to win for tanking reasons! There’s no real upside to it. Another ~25th pick in 2029? Rad. Let’s all move on.

that actually sounds like a real take clay & it's one that i agree with

there was actually a tweet from marc spears or someone like that that slipped under the radar last week, saying that the heat & blazers haven't been in contact recently but are going to start talking again when training camp picks up in a few weeks. i think what's gone unstated over the last 2 months -- bcuz the league and its media members all benefit from the idea that every team in the NBA is poring over every possible dame lillard trade scenario for 24 hours a day every day -- is that NBA front offices actually do take summer vacations. i'm still optimistic that something gets hammered out once ppl in portland and miami get back to work

I do ftr think the ownership being totally blinkered and checked out has led to something of a rudderless ship. Why is Chauncey Billups the coach of this team? He’s the guy you want tutoring the 19 year old phenom genius? Is he even a coach? There doesn’t seem to be a voice or vision from Allen et al, and the franchise may tread some painful water until they’re forced to relinquish the team

oh yeah the owner needed to step in two years ago and say "we're not offering dame an insane massive extension and actually we're going to trade him." the franchise would inarguably be in a better place. but... yeah

yeah all recent inexplicable blazers stuff can be traced back to having ownership that just doesnt give a shit

idk why she just wont sell maybe thinks team prices will continue to increase

yeah if you’ve got an inherently rare asset that’s just gonna accrue value while you sit on it and let it rot why dump it for what you can get now

what actually may force their hand sooner than later is the arena is nearing 30 years old and really showing it’s age. They either need to gut it and dropping a zillion into a reconstruction or build a new one and her brother was big into not making tax payers do that shit for his ass

could be waiting on the big expansion payout that everyone thinks is coming

I don't understand what leverage Lillard has. They have him under contract. They have his replacement on the roster. They have a poor man's version of Herro on their roster already. They have no real mandate to win this year. I find it super hard to believe that he'll show up and be a bad influence. I don't think he's capable of pulling a Harden. And it's hard to be a media distraction given that no one pays attention to Portland in the first place.

well lillard has been the story of the nba for the last two months despite being nominally in portland. It’s drama, it involves a finals team that’s in a glamorous place, the hounds will keep at it

I really doubt the hounds will keep up with it once there are actual NBA storylines to report on.

idk espn is on 24 hours a day