nba off season 2024 bud 2 suns etc

i have basketball reasons

the kid anthony edwards

People often want OKC to push all their chips in on a big star. But they already have three potential max-level players with SGA, Jalen Williams, and Chet. Adding another star doesn't seem helpful.

Feels like they can just keep adding supporting players via the draft and trades.

The Hayward trade was mostly to free up salary to allow them to keep their players who need extending this summer - Josh Giddey, Aaron Wiggins, and Isaiah Joe.

we'll see how the playoffs play out but i agree with you. better off getting depth to be more flexible with their lineups and play style.

Even if they crash and burn in the semis, the season's been a success for the Thunder. But it might feel like a waste of a season where the chips are falling - they're going to be playing the second round with a week's rest advantage against a team with injury concerns to their star.

They also have Ousmane Dieng waiting in the wings. He's still raw but might have the potential to add some options to the bench as a stretch 5 and scorer.

You can always count on them to trade for a huge contract (that is expiring soon and comes with free picks).

RIP heat

its tough without your guys

harden missed two of those floaters so far good looks tho

oops

let us all now rubberneck at some of the interesting takes of mat ishbia in phx postmortem presser

Five in the next eight years, we have a first-round draft pick. I know that's not a cool thing to say out there because people like to say their narratives that we have no draft picks, but we have five in the next eight years and we can trade two of 'em next month if we want. So it is not like people say we have no flexibility.

…

Let's be real -- ask the other 29 GMs, 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team and our draft picks as is," Ishbia said. "The house is not on fire. We're in a great position. It's not hard to fix. We have enough talent to win a championship.

…

You look back at some of the trades that James and all of us were part of -- we do those things a 100 out of a 100 times, not 99 out of a 100, a 100 out of a 100," Ishbia said. "And we still do 'em again. And I think the other 29 GMs would all do the exact same thing. We feel great about the moves we've made on the court, off the court and we're really proud of it.

oh boy

who are the three GMs that wouldn't trade places with Phoenix

I was pretty convinced he was a guy who does a lot of coke when I first heard him simmons pod last year and I stand by my assessment

I assume he meant Boston, Denver, and OKC, though he probably wasn't thinking down to that level of specificity

my dude you had Book and KD shooting 80% and still got eviscerated in 4 games

xxp yes when i started the espn article i got the quotes from i was thinking 'thin-skinned defensive dude" and by the end it was more "high on his own supply," to be taken as literally as one likes lol

don't worry they are going to be the first team to make Kevin Durant good at basketball

"A constant focus for us is to continue how to figure out and maximize Kevin Durant. No one has done it yet. I believe we'll be the 1st team to do it."

James Jones.

"When he's playing at the highest level, he makes us a really, really good team and we're damn near unbeatable." pic.twitter.com/SOAL5iyp9k

— Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) May 1, 2024

james jones is low key the second or third worst gm in the league

he went to the lebron school of gming so not a shock

During the series against the Timberwolves, Durant averaged 26.8 points on 55.2% shooting from the field with 6.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 1.5 blocks over four games.

not that stats are the full story but really curious as to what he thinks he's going to "unlock" to make a then 36 going on 37 year old Kevin Durant next year better than this.

like Booker and KD combined for 82 points in Game 4 and your plan is to somehow make Kevin Durant better?

there actually is probably a way to get more out of kevin durant but it would involve him wanting to do something other than shoot 2-point jumpers

feel like the Dubs maximized KD pretty well

saw that quote yesterday and thought it was fake

ishbia and jones pretending theyre in some great spot lol you got swept out of the first round thats not good

KD has yet to enter his prime though

just need to trick him into shooting from behind the 3pt line

I assume he meant Boston, Denver, and OKC, though he probably wasn't thinking down to that level of specificity

― intheblanks, Thursday, May 2, 2024 10:18 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

they gotta put minny in there too due to just sweeping them

KDs unwillingness to shoot ~8+ 3s per game is strange.

at this point in his career i think he just doesnt want to move around that much its a lot harder for him to get 8 nice threes than it is to get 8 nice middys, as to why he didnt take more threes earlier in his career idk maybe he didnt want to move around that much

if you did a porzingis type thing and camped him out four feet behind the line on wing sometimes youd think thatd be pretty good from a taking threes perspective and also for spacing

spo not an nba fan smh

"They probably had something to motivate them even more against us, but they played at a high level. I will not watch 1 minute of their games but they will probably do this to several teams from here on out." - Spo on the Celtics pic.twitter.com/gRuXCHw4Ve

— Naveen Ganglani (@naveenganglani) May 2, 2024

The Celtics are his headache, not his leisure time pleasure.

yup, you can hear the pain in his voice when he says it

hollinger

Mat Ishbia is shattering all kinds of records for Impulsive New Owner Doing Stuff and Lighting the Next Decade on Fire. It’s hard to believe Phoenix’s new boss took over in February 2023; he had a good but flawed team built around Devin Booker, Chris Paul, Mikal Bridges, Deandre Ayton and Cameron Johnson that had no future draft pick obligations.

All he’s done since then is trade four unprotected first-round picks, four unprotected pick swaps, three swaps of the swaps and nine second-round picks, all in an effort to turn a second-tier contender into a champion. Other than Booker, the only roster player left from when Ishbia took over is Josh Okogie.

incredible work

cleaned house and killed the vibes

hollinger suggests a durant to okc trade in that article btw

ha i saw that

cant imagine the suns doing any of those trades that he suggested where they get back a quarter of what they gave up for kd

welcome to the eason

PatBev just chucked the ball at a fan at the end of the game. pic.twitter.com/UKrliCZUF7

— Steph Noh (@StephNoh) May 3, 2024

lmao

bucks season a genuine disaster. the injuries at the end will be used to mask the issues

and the ok record also

yup

oh wow the pat bev clip is WAY worse in totality

altercation between pat bev and pacers fans behind the bench pic.twitter.com/dfQpqSBv33

— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) May 3, 2024

thats gotta be like a 15-20 game suspension

what a clown

he sucks

he just cheap shots some girl in the head shes not even looking then a guy tosses back to him and he hucks it at the guy