stashing assets for the 2023 nba offseason

would be an incredible choice to trade for harden following the unmitigated success of 1 season with brunson

leon rose has done a solid job of keeping dolan at bay, but it would be very in character for dolan to leap back into action after tasting the slightest modicum of success (like when he demanded the carmelo trade and broke up a pretty fun amare-led team, even tho melo was 1000% gonna sign in the offseason either way)

all the more confusing!

wait i meant to post this too lol

Given that Harden cannot be extended after being traded, it means he's going to be a UFA next summer, when he'll turn 35.

Barring a complete rejuvenation, I'm not sure the market's going to be what he's hoping it will be.

— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) June 29, 2023

prob hoping whoever trades for him will re him up, wonder what philly offered him

do you mean next summer? that would be interesting bcuz the whole thing w/ the sixers was him taking less last summer so that they could sign tucker and danuel house (lol) before getting his max from them this summer. except clearly that offer never materialized, one has to imagine. unless he just wants to leave philly so badly that he’s leaving $100m+ on the table but that seems highly unlikely

Seems like they woulda at least offered 3/75 or 4/80 or something

Sacramento Kings forward Harrison Barnes – a key part of the franchise’s rise into Western Conference contention – has agreed on a new three-year, $54 million contract extension, his agent Jeff Schwartz of @Excelbasketball tells ESPN. pic.twitter.com/JCT4RUayt7

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 30, 2023

everyone seemed to think the point of them selling their pick for cap space was to get someone better than him

sam amick article in the athletic about the harden business essentially says the rockets decided weeks ago not to pursue harden & the huge offer he thought he was getting from the sixers has not materialized. that coupled with an apparent lack of clarity from morey is what is now driving harden to want out

amick also says in the piece that morey is giving philly’s punishment for tampering last offseason as the reason why he can’t divulge his plans with harden but the implication is that morey is using that as a shield while he essentially lets harden come to realize that there is no market for him on a huge longterm deal

simmons makes the correct point on his podcast that nothing in morey’s history would tell you that he’s about to trade harden for, i.e., norm powell, marcus morris and picks or some of the fake trades that are floating out there now. he also makes the point that finding a star-for-star trade partner for harden that would make sense for both the acquiring team & philly is essentially impossible

and of course the possibility that this becomes ben simmons 2.0 is the absolute funniest outcome of the harden acquisition

morey might have to just take the L on this one idk, unless he wants to send maxey out with harden, hes got one first he can trade too, lol

what’s the explanation for opting in if he wants to be traded?

opting in is the only path he has to getting to the clippers since they could never sign him outright as a free agent

oh right

i will hand it to daryl for not putting a max offer or whatever in front of harden after last year’s debacle in the playoffs, but acquiring harden in the first place was always going to end up in a playoff debacle so….

yeah i was thinking about that, like turning ben simmons into harden into ??? is going to be an interesting series of transactions to evaluate.

sixers seem pretty fucked

ben simmons is a sad headcase who seems doomed to be washed out of the league

morey being patient and getting harden is very big "be careful what u wish 4" energy

he couldve had haliburton, according to league sources

b/w morey fumbling haliburton, clippers trading sga to get paul george, and the suns trading mikal bridges, i dont know how long it will take for teams to realize that maybe they can build a contender with young stars if they're patient. owners just want the instant gratification of a new toy.

yeah one would think the sentiment will shift at some point but some teams will always want the stars

yeah the PG and KD trades were both defended by everyone in the media, following the lead of their league sources, w/ the logic of "well if you can get one of those guys you simply have to do it. the NBA is about getting those guys" but you know it turns out that maybe you don't actually have to do it, nor should you

the thing to me thats the biggest flaw in moreyball is that taking these big swings pushing all your chips in etc results in these really short windows to contend and then youre tapped out, where if you develop your own guys dont trade all your draft picks for huge contracts you can be in the mix for a long time

at some point with your home grown team you might want to make one big trade like bucks for jrue but that different than building a super team

the nba is not about getting old guys

its true

ok PG was not as old as i thought

the same ppl have also been arguing over & over that morey won the harden trade, he held out for his star and got it, the sixers had the most deadly PPP pick & roll duo in the regular season yada yada. sixers went 13-10 in the playoffs w/ harden, never advanced past the second round, were able to dump ben simmons contract but gave up 2 first round picks in the process & are now hamstrung asset wise, also gave up seth curry and then shot 16-71 from three in the final 2 games of the boston series... i'm not gonna bang the gavel on this trade being a disaster until we see how this harden stuff resolves but as of now it's looking quite disaster-ish

also trading for a guy whos on his second trade request in a year might give you pause

and as a staunch "morey should dump simmons for the halliburton appetizer combo" poster and a staunch "if you give up two first round picks for james harden in your quest to win a title you didn't actually win a trade" poster i'm not revising history here

morey knew first hand about all the crazy shit harden did in houston and did not care, he was his biggest enabler lol, another strike against the boy genius

morey is prob by any measure one of the best GMs of his generation except for the part where the success of all his teams was put in the hands of one of the worst playoff performers of all time, it's very tragic in a greek way

he made some nice moves for sure but imo he lacked the good fundamentals and also doesnt seem to understand the human skills part, its weird that he was never a wall street guy cause its all extremely wall streety

wonder when the wreckage of the sixers will get bad enough for him to quit

he completely skated on the mess houston became bcuz harden & to an extent fertita are such obvious lightning rods for criticism

the westbrook trade was such a perfect fuck it im out of here anyway move

absolutely not

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz414KrWAA04JI_?format=jpg&name=large

pat is beyond cooked

hes so lame i hate him

yeah he sucks, not a fan

i like it - celtics need more podcasting depth off the bench

its true that the celtics dont have any casters

Jaylen brown should start one with his bff Kyrie

o god

What could go wrong

jaylen has managed to stay just on the other side of the saying dumb shit on podcasts line and for that he has my thanks lol

there's some sorta like half life sequence that goes marcus smart -> dillon brooks -> pat beverly so i guess this makes sense

and of course the possibility that this becomes ben simmons 2.0 is the absolute funniest outcome of the harden acquisition

― J0rdan S., Friday, June 30, 2023 1:49 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

hey give Harden some credit he at least always seems to want to be out there. maybe he'll have those Simmons-ish games where he scores 7 points and fouls out but it'll be on 40 shot attempts not 4

he at least always seems to want to be out there

i think we might have different interpretations of james harden's emotional state in games 6 and 7 of the celtics series