2020 nba offseason draft free agency etc

they need everything to go just right to get back that top level and its rare for everything to go just right. and steph is 33 next year

― micah, Wednesday, November 4, 2020 5:18 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

their margin for error is the same as any of the other top tier teams imo.

i'm honestly not sure that everything needs to go right. there is no juggernaut in the west right now. the clippers got embarrassed and have a roster that is in flux. the lakers got taken pretty close to the edge by a broken down heat team w/ much less top end talent than the warriors. nuggets and mavs still have a lot to prove. rockets are out of the picture, utah isn't scaring anyone. i don't think it's likely that the warriors come out of the west but i don't think it's some huge long shot either. imo the age factor is significantly mitigated by the fact that they just took a whole season off. by the time the season starts back up steph won't have played an nba game in 9 months, klay in a year and a half. i think they will look rejuvenated. it worked for lebron

everybody in the west is def slightly flawed. as constituted the warriors could look pretty good and still not have enough depth to get far in the playoffs.

Yah they have work to do to fill out the roster

The National Basketball Players Association has voted to tentatively approve NBA’s proposal for the 2020-21 campaign starting on Dec. 22 and playing 72-game season, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.

NBA set to tip off Christmas week.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 6, 2020

BALL

let's gooooo

trades

they're gonna trade the ball

damn rip talking stick resort arena

Talking Stick Resort announced today the conclusion of its agreement with the Suns over the naming rights to Talking Stick Resort Arena.

Negotiations for a renewal began in early 2020 prior to the pandemic. The resort decided to not renew.

New name for the new-look arena then.

— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) November 7, 2020

dammit. that name was hilarious.

nothing can touch Smoothie King as long as that one's around

Ball Arena and Banker's Life Fieldhouse are both funny in their mundaneness too though

A buddy in college worked at a smoothie king and warned everyone that it was filthy and to never go there.

it's true, we are getting ball arena and i'm excited about that

Climate Pledge Arena is not yet an NBA venue but it is an atrocious name, hope u enjoy it

Speaking of arenas, three of the main cities that swung the vote had their arenas used as polling places because of the bubble strike but nobody's talking about How Hoops Saved America.

wld be a nice counterpoint to ratings twitter

the people must know how hoop blocked trump

id go so far as to say the election was "a slam dunk baby"

lame

New Houston Rockets GM Rafael Stone: “We’re still all-in” https://t.co/FADYf1ckQF

— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) November 8, 2020

theyll get a year to try again and then the owner will get cranky

this is one of the better articles i've read in a while--explains the differences between duke and kentucky as top recruit destinations and how that affects how we should think of their players as draft prospects: https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/11/6/21551113/nba-draft-duke-kentucky-players

So the draft is next Wednesday?!?

The Phoenix Suns have had discussions about acquiring Chris Paul from the OKC Thunder, sources tell me & @TimBontemps. Story forthcoming.

— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) November 11, 2020

nice

would be kinda fun

i don't know what okc might want beyond the matching salaries but it strikes me as a pretty low-risk move for the suns.

suns are under the cap so they can just eat a bunch of pauls salary

The Oklahoma City Thunder are promoting assistant Mark Daigneault to become the franchise’s next head coach, sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 11, 2020

who ddat

who Daigneault at

wld be kinda lame if cp3 and jrue ended up on non contenders

seems kinda likely. CP moreso since his contract is such a beast

yeah

James Harden, Russell Westbrook reportedly concerned about Houston direction https://t.co/MPWi5v53gT

— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) November 11, 2020

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

yeah

there may be some issues with moreys push all in if you have even a 5% chance strategy, for the team not him lol

those salaries are madness. they should be concerned that they arent earning them.

that third max contract is a killer, wld prob be better to cap them at second contract size

“Oh, no, you’re all in, I got a new job, sucker.”

it's just really funny that instead of simply running good franchises the owners decided the only way they could keep their best players was to make special rules so they could give them cripplingly huge sums of money

they've basically been following the same playbook as a lot of lebron's teams over the years--trade future value for present, sign guys to extensions b/c there's no way to replace them, get nothing from the draft. it always ends like this.

Good general overview
https://www.si.com/nba/2020/11/10/nba-free-agency-rankings-top-50

Fred VanVleet on his priorities in free agency:

“I’ve won a championship, now it’s time to cash out.”

fair enough

detroit pistons are like "say no more"

the owners decided the only way they could keep their best players was to make special rules so they could give them cripplingly huge sums of money

The courts have required that free agency must be permitted and that owners are not allowed to collude together to fix FA salary ceilings on their own. That's restraint of trade. The solution is for all the players to have a union and negotiate a CBA that sets the FA rules. On the whole it works out better for owners and players (and fans) than operating in a rules-free environment.

i think we're talking about the recently added super-max here specifically

^^

it's obvious that if a half dozen teams can all offer a FA the same max contract, the FA is far more likely to pick the big market team, since there are more opportunities for lucrative side-gigs and most NBA players find NYC or LA more congenial than, say, Salt Lake City. the super max was one of several attempts to compensate for that dynamic. but it would work better if all teams were riding a rapidly rising escalator of profits.