stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

its the same story every offseason we need new writers

dame's agent has been issuing plenty of double-talk on the question of whether dame would honor his contract if he's traded somewhere that's not miami

nba news is in the dumps right now i really cant get myself to care about this very much. if this happened a couple/few years ago it would be way more interesting.

― nobody respects the chair (Spottie), Monday, September 18, 2023 4:50 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

its the same story every offseason we need new writers

― ciderpress, Monday, September 18, 2023 4:56 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Seriously, I needed something mindless to listen to while I was doing some housework today, and I put on the Hoop Collective with Windy and the Tims... the storylines they were trying to get themselves excited about were just going through the motions to an intolerable degree, sounded like AI

Free agent G/F Kelly Oubre Jr., is expected to sign a one-year deal with the Philadelphia 76ers, sources tell ESPN. Oubre — who averaged 20 points for Charlotte last season — could get significant opportunity on the wing with the uncertainty around James Harden.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 18, 2023

embiid will stay now

Yes, for instance, the Blazers want Lillard to stop leaking every six days that he won't report to camp unless he's traded to Miami, and he doesn't want to do that. https://t.co/IBpXft38y3

— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) September 19, 2023

a fun game to play whenever one of these posts gets a lot of angry replies/QTs is to check the location and/or team loyalties of the people replying. for all the shit we hear about the regressive politics of the state of florida, there seems to really be a groundswell of pro-worker sentiment!

ha

there seems to really be a groundswell of pro-worker sentiment!

Eh. Pro-worker sentiment is better spent on disputes of substance, like pay and working conditions, instead of who gets to gratify his ambition for a trophy.

The whole idea in giving Lillard that super-max contract and extending it out to the bitter end of his career was that it ensured Lillard was well-rewarded for his frequently announced intention of ending his career as a Blazer. The idea that the Blazers didn't hold up their end of the bargain because the CBA rules put them into a strait jacket in regard to trades and the luxury tax (and small, white city vibe) make it extremely hard to compete for FAs is something of a stretch. But athletes like Lillard operate in a different world and under different rules than ordinary workers or even ordinary NBA starters, so to totally misapply a famous quote, "when you're a celebrity, they let you do it".

The entire Miami media and fanbase has become That Guy in your fantasy league who writes long emails telling you why trading him Giannis for Desmond Bane is good for you if you just think about it the right way.

— Anchorage Man (@SethPartnow) September 19, 2023

these pro management takes are getting out of control!

Huge addition to the James Dolan canon here for serious SPHERE Heads (Joe Lhota calling it Dolan's "baby," a live feed of the SPHERE is beamed into Dolan's office, the strong implication that Dolan sucks at blackjack, etc.)https://t.co/1wkEXJ94H6

— Christopher Robbins (@ChristRobbins) September 20, 2023

Something is going on

https://x.com/Richard448877/status/1705059565241237641?s=20

Richard448877 rarely misses

Doooh I'm dumb

u just got richar'ed bro

a little disappointed that's not happening tbh someone get on the horn

since i know everyone is dying for another injection of dame gossip, everything out there right now is the likeliest deal is lillard to toronto for OG, gr8080 dick, cap filler, and a grip of draft picks. i love it tbh

wow yeah that would be good for the blazers

masai would totally trade for dame even if he didnt want to be there too

siakim barnes* and lillard would be pretty sick to watch too, they'd need to fill out the roster with god knows what is out there

* if last year was a fluke, idrk what the story is there

confidential to massai: do it bro

meanwhile

The Miami Heat offered a trade package that included Tyler Herro and two first-round draft picks for Damian Lillard, per @MarcJSpears pic.twitter.com/hZEB9BBjtX

— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) September 25, 2023

that's not as good i don't like that as much

*imo barnes is very talented but he has to develop necessary actual basketball skills like shooting and defense, he was "bad" last year cause the raps asked him to run the team and hes a young guy who doesnt have all the skills, im sure if they had him in the same role as his rookie year people would still be stoked on him warranted or not

potential trend of trading guys to toronto when they want to go to the sunshine palaces is good stuff

wonder it miami has switched to get giannis mode

that toronto deal doesn't feel much better than what miami could offer though i guess it all depends on what they can route anunoby for vs. herro, i mean surely they wouldn't be serious about keeping anunoby around

getting toronto picks >> getting miami picks

og has mega value last year someone offered 4 first for him fwiw, type of guy everyone wants big wing who can fit in any scheme/roster

if miami is topping out at two #28s near the end of the decade and a guy portland can't do much with you pretty much take any other offer imo, the raps one is significantly beefier. not to mention everyone seems pretty high on dick and og is very very good and if he clicks with the young dudes why wouldn't you extend him xp

if dame doesn't go to miami this season (narrator: he won't) then at the least he should fire his agent, who seems very bad at his job.

if it's true that OG has been pushing for a bigger offensive role in toronto i wouldn't be confident in him being cool watching scoot and anfernee simons and shaedon sharpe figure things out while jerami grant also expects touches

yeah he really should be on a good team anyway hed be a ceiling raiser for a contender, tho maybe not in an increased offensive role way

OG is also a FA after this year. part of the reason why teams were offering 4 firsts for him is bcuz he is on a very cheap contract. but the 1 year $18 million left on it would be wasted on portland who is going to be bad regardless. his value on a $200 million contract is a lot different. they’d also be paying grant at the same time. i think their justification would be that sharpe and scoot are on cheap deals for a while so they have money to spend. i’m not sure what you’re accomplishing with that team, or trying to accomplish. maybe OG has a mikael bridges like jump on a team where he can get more touches.

gradey feels pretty comparable to the young guys miami has so it comes down to how many firsts you get with OG and if you like that more than herro and presumably a greater number of firsts from miami.

getting toronto picks >> getting miami picks

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Monday, September 25, 2023 9:39 PM (yesterday)

not really. go look at where toronto has drafted under masai. they picked 9th one year (took poetel) and tanked in the cade/mobley/barnes draft, got lottery luck and ended up w/ the 4th pick. otherwise it's all picks in the late lottery and 20s. and then you're trading him dame.

doesnt seem like miami really cares if they get dame but that might just be bargaining posture, lets see if a bidding war breaks out, toronto can easily beat miamis best offer but who knows if they want to

le batard said this morning that the heat don’t want to overpay for dame given the final two years of his deal when they already have jimmy’s contract going in that direction too. he said this while wearing a heat mouthpiece just to drive the subtext home

i do think the heat have a level of justification for the feeling that as much as the blazers can wait it out to the trade deadline, so can the heat. they have real assets to improve their team in some fashion if this all falls apart. they would be underdogs in a 7 game series vs boston, milwaukee and philly right now and maybe it’s hubris that the heat would say they would beat them all anyway but they have beaten each of them in the playoffs in the last row seasons. and none of those teams is looking markedly better on paper

he said this while wearing a heat mouthpiece just to drive the subtext home

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, September 26, 2023 3:20 PM (ten seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

yeah all that reasoning is very reasonable, will be interesting to see what happens if another bidder gets in on the action, cld totally see the heat walking away

theyre in an interesting spot with jimmy being at the end of his prime and then bam and herro being much younger, seems like theyre not super committed to herro long term but bam is a building block

raptors reporter throwing cold water on this whole thing this morning

FWIW - growing consensus from around league that Miami will indeed be destination for Dame. We’ll see.

— Michael Grange (@michaelgrange) September 27, 2023

i feel like "growing consensus from around the league" is just people making the same conclusion all over again, which is that nobody except the heat seems really motivated to make this deal. but at least as far as the toronto aspect goes it feels like a significant rebuttal. i think ppl were making good points about masai's recent track record of letting lowry and van vleet walk while asking for the moon and stars for OG doesn't really line up w/ the idea of him trading OG for dame

one has to imagine that giannis openly saying he might be on the market imminently is further depressing whatever appetite might have been out there for a team to swing a giant dame trade. there's also the possibility of embiid and maybe donovan mitchell. that has to be why neither of the new york teams seem interested in dame at all despite having by far the best combination of assets and market.

the interesting wrinkle as far as miami goes is that bam might be one of the worst fits w/ giannis among high level players. and there's no way you could play him and embiid together. i'm sure the heat would just say they'll figure it out but their path for getting/utilizing giannis in particular seems more complicated to me than other potential destinations. i also find it hard to believe, given the extensive and twisted recent playoff history between the two franchises, that the bucks would ever trade giannis to the heat even if he flat out requested it. like i said yesterday the heat can plausibly wait around for the above guys or whoever else but i just think when you strip the emotion out of the situation the heat still make a lot of sense for dame given their roster and what they can give up in assets relative to other teams like philly, clippers, lakers etc that also have rosters heavily slanted towards the "win now" end of the spectrum

ultimately the thing people in portland + whoever thinks dame is going to bring back a massive trade haul has to reckon with is that the last extension portland gave him tacking two years & $122 million onto his contract is a giant anchor on both his trade value and portland's leverage in trade discussions. if dame was only owed the 2 years and $81 million he is due the next two seasons he would make sense for just about every team in the league w/ any ambition to win. an acquiring team would also have a far more compelling case to force dame to play out his contract w/ only two years on it & no fear of being stuck w/ the $122 million tab for a grumpy aging guard. or at the very worst he could be flipped again as an expiring contract after this year if it went poorly. instead no team in the league wants to get into all this drama -- let alone give up a lot of assets -- just for the pleasure of being stuck w/ what is going to be, at some point, a massively underwater contract

when you strip the emotion out of the situation the heat still make a lot of sense for dame given their roster and what they can give up in assets relative to other teams like philly, clippers, lakers etc

all this makes sense for dame, but every available outcome leaves the blazers with no bench, a handful of kiddies at starter, and another basement season where they can go fishing for yet another talented 19 y.o. otoh, the blazers will have cap space to burn.

yeah but that’s portland’s fault. for all the narrative building about how miami is being unreasonable in thinking it can get dame for herro and some picks, the blazers aren’t owed a certain level of a trade package back just bcuz they’re putting a player of dame’s name recognition on the trade market. if they wanted a deal that is going to immediately revitalize their roster, they should’ve traded him two years ago. it’s nobody else’s problem if that was difficult for them because he was a franchise icon. joe cronin decided he wanted to try and thread the needle, it didn’t work and now he’s left holding the bag. the trade, regardless of who it’s with, is likely not going to be made on his terms & that’s just the reality he and the franchise have to deal with. if the available trade options leave them with no great future plan, well… everyone has been saying for two years that this exact scenario would play out if the blazers just sat on their hands and here we are

it is true that everyone said that

doesnt sound like the thunder are likely to make a big move despite having the ability to

Sam Presti on potentially going “all in” for a trade for a star: pic.twitter.com/ReZ0XMlHnC

— Rylan Stiles (@Rylan_Stiles) September 27, 2023

ahhhhh

BREAKING: The Portland Trail Blazers are trading guard Damian Lillard to the Milwaukee Bucks, sources tell ESPN. pic.twitter.com/FRgQyDVjQG

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 27, 2023

https://i.imgur.com/9HImKdt.gif

bucks have one first they can trade idgi

@?!?!?!/1/1/1/1?!?1/1/1/

hey what’s happenin

i guess like this

Lillard goes Milwaukee as part of a 3-team deal with Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, a 2029 unprotected MIL 1st, and unprotected MIL swap rights in 2028 and 2030 to Blazers. Phoenix lands Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson. https://t.co/Ge0H91AiIA

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 27, 2023

so the blazers basically got ayton and an unprotected first? and dumped nurkic’s contract