2020 nba offseason draft free agency etc

big brand

need to make him promise

Report: James Harden tells Rockets he’ll be professional and engaged, still wants trade https://t.co/r7x7bNdlHb

— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) December 14, 2020

pinky swear really

it's kinda funny - i have no attachment to the rockets whatsoever but i got kinda excited at the idea of Wall and Cousins finally reunited and able to bring out some quality ball in each other. add Christian Wood and maybe you got a stew goin'! not betting on this remotely but if Harden could readjust his mindset just a bit so that he sucks up <90% of the team's energy and basketball strategy, could be interesting to see what comes of it.

oh yeah hadnt even considered the kentucky connection

some pretty gnarly personality/vibes/circumstances on that team tho

oh yes. kinda curious what if any input harden had into the coaching hire. can't recall the timeline of where that fit into the implosion (obv after dan tony bolted)

whoa, down the rabbit hole of Houston Rockets wikipedia, til that the Maloofs of Sac Kangz fame also owned the Rockets in the early 80s!

da original party boyz

sure why not

The Houston Rockets have asked the Philadelphia 76ers for 3 first round picks AND Ben Simmons in a trade for James Harden, per @YaronWeitzman pic.twitter.com/9X3J6dAdkq

— NBA Central (@TheNBACentral) December 14, 2020

who doesn't want to have it all

its self care

the morey tax

the spacing on a simmons/wall/cousins team would be quite something

never knew about this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/sports/basketball/anthony-carter-bill-duffy-miami-heat.html

smooth

??? pic.twitter.com/BQ9S01xwa9

— pickuphoop (@pickuphoop) December 15, 2020

he's going to be a must-watch. anything could happen on every single possession he's in.

yeah it’s going to be sikk

he looks bigger and stronger than i had expected, not as twiggy as his brother

frankly unfair
https://www.theringer.com/platform/amp/2020/12/15/22175478/los-angeles-lakers-talen-horton-tucker-lebron-james?__twitter_impression=true

everythings possible in the preseason

Breaking: Giannis Antetokounmpo says he is signing a contract extension with the Milwaukee Bucks. The two-time MVP will sign a five-year, $228.2 million supermax extension with the franchise, the largest deal in NBA history, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) December 15, 2020

YESSSSSSSSSS

MILWAUKEE LEGEND

nice

that's good.

looking forward to the trade demand next year

but in all seriousness good for the game

agreed

It's not like the Bucks had any choice in this. The supermax is like the neutron bomb of contracts. It leaves the star player intact and kills the rest of the team.

man he better hope the whole mortgaging the team's future for jrue holiday thing works out

they've mortgaged their future for much worse

I remember one offseason where they kneecapped themselves to sign Charlie Spaghetti. that wasn't his name but I'm not gonna look it up

it seems like his decision was based on factors that transcend the make up of the roster, which always seemed to be the case, but which also makes their desperate, frenetic offseason even more bizarre

really good news for the league. hope he doenst demand a trade during that contract. now we just need harden to go east.

the opt out of after the 4th year is basically being like, i'm giving you guys three years before we go thru this again

the knicks are gonna have to find a new pipe dream

Good for the game to have such a huge star stay with his team, and also good for the league not to have 15-20 teams basing their whole financial strategy around creating space for him on the slim chance they're gonna get him

also good to not have it be a story this whole season

otm

It's not like the Bucks had any choice in this. The supermax is like the neutron bomb of contracts. It leaves the star player intact and kills the rest of the team.

the clippers are badly overpaying PG and partly as a result of this seem destined to pay enormous sums of luxury tax, but you're correct that Giannis is easily more valuable than PG

this is far and away the best outcome for literally everyone who cares about the nba in every possible way except, like, Knicks lost-causers and pat riley; god bless giannis

Like it’s great that some teams only have to pay a guy 30m a year because it’s the first extension, but 45 mil for a reigning 2 time mvp is a bargain

congrats MKE!

I feel like even if you don't win a championship you have to just enjoy it, like in MN we were so disappointed when KG left and obviously it never quite worked out and it felt like a failure at the time but boy do I miss it, just someone who was always worth watching, someone who made it fun

otm

absolutely

before Giannis I feel like Milwaukee was the worst type of team to follow, they usually weren't terrible but they were never good enough to win a playoff series and always seemed to give contracts to the wrong guys, like every single year it was "holy shit we're still paying THAT guy?" when they did get lucky enough to snag the #1 pick they used it on Andrew Bogut. for years we were waiting for the guy that was going to elevate us. thought it might be Brandon Jennings, hell when he put up 55 it felt like the first time anybody talked about the Bucks since Ray Allen, little did we know that was gonna be the peak of his career. thought maybe it would be Jabari but injuries + terrible defense got him off the team in the hurry. obviously we all kinda knew Giannis would be special from the first games he played but man...nobody expected this

btw I don't want to imply that it was just bad luck, they had a legitimately terrible front office who made moves that even I knew made no sense. they'd do this thing where they would find one player they liked and then try to get as many copies of that guy as they could. when Jennings was starting to look like a breakout star they signed Monta Ellis, both of whom just endlessly chucked us out of ballgames, then they got J.J. Redick on top of that, losing Tobias Harris in the process (who's been a solid starter ever since). when John Salmons gave us a spark they wound up signing him plus 3 other 30+-year old forwards that offseason (all of whom got pretty generous deals if I remember correctly). that team was such a goddamn mess. they also loved to have multiple big white guys who couldn't run or shoot. it was like they were trying to grab that "most consecutive 1st round exits" record they so obviously deserved.

I am 9 mins into the first preseason game and I am already tired of seeing Embiid shooting from outside.

But ILH.

James Soften pic.twitter.com/X3xFkS0Jaf

— Steve McPherson (@steventurous) December 16, 2020

How it started: How it’s going: pic.twitter.com/QBV4k9m5FJ

— Tᴏɴʏ! Tᴏɴɪ! Tᴏɴᴇ́! 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚔 (R.I.P.) 🕙 (@StarkTTT) December 16, 2020