stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

maybe theyll sign miles bridges too

“James Harden's future is very unclear in Philadelphia… Houston is very much in play for him.”

- @wojespn

(h/t @RealGM ) pic.twitter.com/fyhyS2JkCu

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) April 20, 2023

must be nice for the sixers to be hearing about this during the playoffs

We don't give a fuck about dude. Dudes a rental

— EmbiidFAM (@slidecuh) April 20, 2023

Not exactly my take, but I'm loling at the Philly.

you gotta respect it

whenever there’s this much smoke around something in the NBA recently it seems like it comes true. and w harden in particular the situations in houston and brooklyn played out the way the rumors said they would

is houston interested?

from what reporters have been saying for a few months now— yes

I think Harden's been very good for Philly and a team player mostly. If he leaves, I don't know that Philly could replace him right away with another player equally as good - maybe they replace him with a wing who brings something Harden doesn't, say another Melton type, and the team ends up better overall.

On the other hand, my sense is he's going to go with whoever pays him the most and everything else is posturing.

I'm not sure Philly should be that team at this point.

do we still bow at daryl’s feet for heroically defying public pressure and holding out for his star player if the star walks and/or isn’t worth another contract?

Yeesh, J0rdan.

I think Morey has done pretty well with the cards he's been dealt. Most of the truly horrible moves pre-date him (Fultz, Harris v Butler, Bridges).

this could all just be a leverage play too, no?

Well, I think he's "serious", but like I said, I think he'll go with whoever offers him the most money.

So I guess that means, "yes".

i don't think harden needs to leverage morey, of all people

btw i think daryl has done good work in philly i just think the discussion around the harden trade is still ridiculous

daryl went all in on a star as is his way and if harden leaves sixers are fucked, also if he doesnt leave theyre what the third best team in the east

rough crowd harshing my game day buzz

gotta stay locked in only read the playoff thread

I'll need this thread soon enough, lol.

the offseason comes for us all eventually

lmao

ahhh lmao

The Houston Rockets are hiring Ime Udoka as their new head coach, sources tell me and @KellyIko.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 24, 2023

Def need to bring in harden now

has to happen

nets, timberwolves, clippers: welcome to the nba offseason

two of those three teams seem utterly fucked

timberwolves id say are only medium fucked theyve got ant maybe they trade kat idk

ant is great. i'm not sure he's so great that he will just be able to lift any old team past the first round. at least in the next 3-4 years. can he impose his will on a playoff series and put a team on his back and just drag them up the mountain? maybe he can't do that until he's 28 (seven years from now)? so we'll see

i think they have to play their KAT card but it feels like a copy of the trae young conversation where you're looking for a team that is willing to give up significant assets to acquire a massive contract for a one-way player who is prob not good enough to take his team past the second round (or first, shit) w/o significant help and/or luck. an elite big man shooter is easier to fit into a team than a ball hog PG but KAT isn't being paid like he's brook lopez. and the wolves essentially fucked their franchise trading for a guy to play his position bcuz KAT doesn't really have anywhere to play on D. so idk. but if i was them i'd be looking to get off that contract tomorrow if i could

I have to assume Rudy is almost untradable now

Best case for Rudy-dumping is trading him for another maxed-out or nearly-maxed player who's on a shorter duration contract, but is generally less playable than Rudy. I wonder if Kawhi would qualify?

I mean, I don't think the Clips even think about that would they?

ummm no

haha no way in hell

damn rudy has a player option in 2026…

the wolves aren’t in an idea situation, but they have a budding superstar who’s 21 and a guy in KAT who should be tradeable despite his obviously limitations; he’s still on the team that drafted him and I don’t think there’s precedent for a guy with his pedigree not finding a suitor to give him another shot in a new situation. the clippers are a disaster but then playing in LA makes things a little easier to swallow…even still I’d probably rather be the wolves

I don’t think there’s precedent for a guy with his pedigree not finding a suitor to give him another shot in a new situation

we also don't have precedent for players getting paid $50m+ per year. if you trade for KAT you're taking on salaries of $50m, $54m & $58m for the three seasons *after* next year (he gets paid $36m in 23-24) right as the new CBA rules that hammer teams for going too far into the tax kick in. now, the CBA does incentivize teams to go some way into the tax, but if you're paying KAT $55m you're presumably trying to compete in a real way while operating under an effective hard cap. and you know that KAT has to be, at best, your second best player if you're going to be a title contender. so then you gotta find another guy making a similar salary or even more, while also filling out your roster & you're down assets (presumably) bcuz you traded for KAT.

all of which is to say again if i'm the wolves i'm trying to get rid of KAT immediately. the future on that contract looks really bad & i don't see how his value increases the closer those $50m salaries become to reality. i think he can play better in the playoffs w/ more experience (he just does a lot of dumb shit) but he's also a 27 year old who has been in the league for 8 years. i think we probably know what he is at this point.

i'm really curious how teams look at guys like dame, beal, KAT etc who could be out on the market but have the insane extensions that from my perspective look even worse given the new CBA landscape

KAT is a much better player than just being a "salary dump" but if i could salary dump that contract & get nothing back except some roster clarity & future salary cap space i'd do it

he also missed 2/3 the season. and extremely untimely injuries to 2 of their top 6 players. i think theyll be a top 4-6 team next year if everyone stays relatively healthy.

are you talking about the t wolves

Yah

Kat entering his prime. Ant, Jaden another year older. Full season w Conley instead of DLo

putting denver aside on one end and houston, san antonio, portland & utah aside on the other end you could plausibly tell me that any of the other 10 west teams could finish between 4-6. but i still see the wolves as an 8-12 team

the biggest thing that sucked about KAT being out for so long is it provides this blank space where you could project anything, we went through a whole year and still don't really know. i could see management going either way, get out from under KAT get back some picks or - which I think is plausible - what Spottie just said, run this back and it can only get better.

are they willing to pay naz reid is another question. their tax bill is gonna start hiking real quick

I just don’t think a team with edwards, gobert, and either KAT or what KAT gets flipped for is a real threat to finish out of the play-in. they’re probably closer to 6-8 than 4-6 imo tho

are they willing to pay naz reid is another question. their tax bill is gonna start hiking real quick

― Spottie, Wednesday, April 26, 2023 3:37 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think they are going to let him go, hopefully to the jazz so him and walker kessler be the twin towers of wolves regret

feels like ant will eventually be good enough to earn a top 4 seed for whatever team he's on, but also feels like that team isn't gonna be minnesota

they need to can finch. he clearly has no clue.

the more I think about it, given Ant's and Jaden's progression it would be nice - had the Rudy trade not happened - to have the option of trading KAT, getting another good player and picks, having a Naz Reid and Walker Kessler as diet KAT and Rudy but way younger and cheaper, then keeping some of the intriguing young pieces like Alexander-Walker, Josh Minott, Luka Garza and being in the same zone as OKC

uhh....ok?

Anthony Edwards could face legal action,per @DenverSportsCom

“A law enforcement source said Edwards picked up a chair & swung it, striking a security guard…A source confirmed the incident and said both employees were injured & asked to file charges.”

pic.twitter.com/gtSYeMA5YR

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) April 26, 2023

Reeves is 6'5 / 197 lb whereas Grayson is 6'4 / 198 lb... verrry different guys ;)

wiggins trying to drive on wemby lmao he got wrecked

Victor Wembanyama stays with Andrew Wiggins, blocks his jumper, and drills a 3-pointer of his own 🔥pic.twitter.com/wPzvTkX05g

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) October 21, 2023

america's hottest new comedy is the san antonio spurs because all i can do is laugh when i watch wemby destroy these ostensibly large grown up men

its honestly hilarious

hahah i have no idea why wiggins thought he had a chance there

dead attempt from the start it never lived

I think a lot of this stuff should be illegal honestly and it is not because I am jealous

wigdawg not clear on this eight foot arms situation

Wemby just blocked Andrew Wiggins from three.

Look at where he started lol pic.twitter.com/mgmuIFqT8C

— Esfandiar Baraheni (@JustEsBaraheni) October 21, 2023

stephs turn

Steph wasn't even going at Wemby and still got sent back lol pic.twitter.com/1LSsxl6EOj

— Joe Viray (@JoeVirayNBA) October 21, 2023

hahah i have no idea why wiggins thought he had a chance there

This was a test of the Victor Wembanyama Defense System. This was only a test. Had it been an actual regular season or playoff game the result would have been the same.

He’ll prob average like 3-4 blocks a game for the first half of the season

nba starts soon

couple nice match ups lakers-nugs suns-dubs

Grizzlies center Steven Adams will undergo season-ending surgery for a knee injury, team says.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) October 22, 2023

dang sucks

damn, he'd been pretty durable up until now

aw man. that’s pretty big for them especially with ja missing the first 2 months

investigation of ja handling fame poorly

Before being drafted by the Grizzlies with the No. 2 overall pick in 2019, scouting reports on the high-flying point guard out of mid-major Murray State revealed little in the way of red flags.

"Zero," said one veteran NBA scout who scouted Morant for a lottery team in position to draft him. "He was the consummate coachable teammate, a choirboy. Underrecruited. Didn't have many scholarship offers. Played with a chip on his shoulder. Glowing stuff. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing."

Said a second veteran NBA scout: "I studied him inside and out. There was not one person who had a bad thing to say about him. Very much a late bloomer. Good family. Had a work ethic. Humble. He checked every single box."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/38674600/then-alligators-got-memphis-grizzlies-star-ja-morant-18-month-downfall

yeah read that piece, pretty classic too much too soon situation. i hope he gets over himself.

a guy who is constantly beefing with randos naming his boutique streetwear brand “my brothers no others” seems a little too on the nose

Hopefully he’s not in too deep

Signing Rose to mentor Ja is like, uhhh...

will derrick rose be the first NBA MVP *not* to make the HoF y/n

he should be the first for many, many reasons

westbrook should be the 2nd

jk i don't particularly care about the whole hall of fame thing

“It was anything to go against what I would have wanted,” Lillard told The Athletic, “That part was irritating. Just based off how it was happening, I knew (it wouldn’t be Miami).

“(The Blazers) hadn’t talked to Miami. So once it started happening like that, then I started hearing about all these other random teams, I was like, ‘I’m probably not going to Miami.’ So I wasn’t holding on to that too (much).”

What he had done, though, was green-light a message to Milwaukee in mid-September that would have everything to do with what came next.

When Lillard was convinced that Miami was off the table, Goodwin wanted to know if the Bucks were among the teams in serious pursuit of his seven-time-All-Star client. They weren’t.

But when that backchannel blessing was given, with the Bucks learning that Lillard would be excited about a possible partnership with the Bucks, the chase was on. And so the work began for Horst and his small group of trusted front office associates.

https://theathletic.com/4982925/2023/10/23/bucks-damian-lillard-trade-giannis-antetokounmpo/

btw hes not shams level but sam amick is a really bad writer

A businessman who was part of the group that bought the team for $550 million in 2014 and sold at a valuation point of $3.5 billion nine years later.

the nytimes should give the athletic some editors just an idea

https://i.imgur.com/a430Ioi.png

seems like a lot

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels has agreed to a five-year, $136M contract extension, his agents Nima Namakian of @InnovateSports and Bill Duffy of @WME_Sports tell me and @JonKrawczynski.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) October 23, 2023

One year for each finger he broke when he punched the wall and fucked his team's playoff chances

lol

ok who’s starting the new thread

2023/24 NBA REGULAR SEASON THREAD "THANKING FOR WEMBANYAMA"

last of the stashing - hawk's extend Okongwu's rookie deal, 4yr 62mil but do not extend Bey who will now be a free agent this offseason

that could be a steal of a contract for okongwu

agreed he fits a whole lot better in Snyder's scheme. replacing Collins and Capela with Okongwu and Johnson is going to make the hawks really fun

locking up a young guy on a cheap deal usually works out pretty good if theyve any promise

i guess thats not totally a cheap deal but it seems pretty reasonable

in *this economy* thats a great deal