2020 nba offseason draft free agency etc

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.

james takin a lil vacation

According to @KendrickPerkins, James Harden hasn't been answering the phone from ownership, the front office or even Coach Silas for a couple weeks now.

— ClutchFans (@clutchfans) November 11, 2020

the result is that the small market teams instead get to keep their player at the cost of not being able to build a good team around them and then having to deal with the pain point of a dissatisfied star player wanting out

trying to figure out exactly what grievance james has and i am coming up empty

he’s 31 and seeing the writing on the wall

no one on his team bigger than small forward size

yeah, i get that, but it's been there for a while, it's actually james harden's own handwriting, and it's not going to be different someplace else.

maybe he dropped his phone in a puddle

espn reporting ownership called and harden replied "new phone who dis"

Maybe the strip club has bad reception

sources inside the rockets management group quote harden as saying "im going into a tunnel"

I am also 31 and empathize with harden pretty strongly. season’s over, smell y’all later imo

future wolf https://t.co/SpNtQkHtRt

— jan rabari (@bushyt0p) November 11, 2020

Harden ain't going nowhere until he threatens to sit out games straight up; not even a "Hey I definitely won't resign when my deal ends so feel free to trade me ASAP!" request a la AD is gonna be enough to convince Tilman to blow it up. All he's cares about as the league's cheapest and most struggling owner thanks to the pandemic is saving as much $$ as possible, and trading away his only star attraction for rebuilding pieces is gonna do nothing but lose him millions more of it.

i don't blame harden for wanting to get out now... the brain trust of that franchise is a tyrant owner who is also broke, a first time GM and a first time coach. plus the old GM basically burnt the roster down on his way out.

but it's hard to figure out a good trade scenario for him unless giannis decides to sign an extension w/ the bucks before the start of the season. in that case maybe teams like miami & dallas who had been hoarding their cap space would look at him as a pivot. otherwise i feel like you're looking at maybe like boston and philly who are trying to win now w/o any apparent FA possibilities in 2021. but boston would prob have to trade jaylen which seems drastic... sixers maybe seem the most realistic of any team in the league for a number of reasons.

or else i feel like he's looking at idk washington or atlanta or phoenix or whatever, these sorts of teams who would just say fuck it. which i can't imagine is what he's looking for

celtics should jump at the chance to trade jaylen for harden

hayward

this is really good

Sony doing Paul George dirty. pic.twitter.com/IEDOd58lo8

— Ahmed🇸🇴/A&R for Griselda Records (@big_business_) November 11, 2020

haa

if they can find a way to get off that westbrook contract they can do some other stuff but idk about that. apparently they are paying eric gordon through 2024 as well so they are really screwed actually:
https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/HOU.html

harden/westbrook/gordon eating up 90% of your cap space through 2023...

plus the old GM basically burnt the roster down on his way out.

i know that it doesn't really matter but i wouldn't use this characterization. like, james didn't want to play with cp3 so they traded for his friend. james didn't want to run pick and roll anymore so they traded the starting center. like every roster move was done to appease james or play to his strengths. unless he plans on being a different basketball player once he's on another team i don't know where the greener grass is.

i guess it's in philly where he can just repeat the process. i feel like the rockets would almost not do a trade there out of spite.

i know that it doesn't really matter but i wouldn't use this characterization. like, james didn't want to play with cp3 so they traded for his friend. james didn't want to run pick and roll anymore so they traded the starting center. like every roster move was done to appease james or play to his strengths. unless he plans on being a different basketball player once he's on another team i don't know where the greener grass is.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, November 11, 2020 6:02 PM (two minutes ago)

i'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say that everyone hates being around cp3 and the westbrook & capela moves were as much driven by daryl's understanding that he could run the ultimate small ball experiment and leave some other fool to clean up the mess

agree tho that i don't see greener grass for him when you consider age + contract + what the rockets would be asking for in return. he had some really good shots w/ those cp3 teams but it just didn't happen

yikes

Rockets’ Russell Westbrook wants out of Houston, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 12, 2020

well that escalated quickly

good that luck w/ that one russ...

lol

harden not answering russ calls either

new york knicks pleeeassse

mr dolan we need you know more than ever

the aldridge to warriors rumors are really bumming me out

hes a bad fit for the woarriors and also bad

hes a good fit and hes still good

hmm

Houston's James Harden remains committed to the Rockets and is "locked in" for the season, sources tell @KellyIkoNBA and me.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 12, 2020

he's a ~40% 3 pt shooter who can defend anthony davis. they need size against the lakers or they may never sniff the finals in the splash era.

xp

lma is still good at basketball things. he's not a good 'first option' guy now. GS doesn't need him to be.

right. and his contract expires this year. if they can unload wiggins, theyll save tens of millions of dollars in luxury tax next year.

Harden went off the grid on a spirit quest to perfect the one-legged 3.

haven't seen the rumor, what is the trade construction that gets lamarcus to the warriors?

i like lamarcus still ... he started shooting threes and pretty well last year. i think he still has valuable minutes left as a role player

a role player you say! (checks his contract)

what does LMA bring to the warriors that they lack?