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I think the Knicks goal is to sign both Nash and Lin. I know we're seeing all sorts of stories about how the Knicks could let Lin go if somebody signs him to a "poison pill" contract, but I don't see it. He's just too valuable on and off the court and the best thing I can say about the Knicks is that they haven't lost a player due to an unwillingness to spend money in forever.
If they somehow pull Howard out of this hat, I think it'll be hysterical, and awesome. I don't think they can beat Miami and maybe not even Boston, but coming into Brooklyn and winning 50+ games is a pretty reasonable and worthy goal.
Well, as discussed, nothing in this scenario if Howard is still Howard after the back surgery (and I am skeptical about that--obviously he will play again and be good, but I will not be at all surprised if he is not quite what he was before--I know some people thimk the back injury was a wink/wink thing; I am assuming it is not) really "makes sense" for Orlando. The best option to me a good big guy, like Bynum, Lopez, or Horford, as many picks as possible, and seeing if the trading partner will and can take on Turkoglu.
If they want a guy like him to be a sixth man, with Bradley starting, I like Terry better. Allen didn't like that role in Boston last year (though he'd obviously be coming off the bench in Miami), while Terry seems to relish it.
Reporting is that it's for 3 yr/$20 mil, which seems expensive.
That's INSANE. It's obviously a Nash ploy, but that's a TON of money for a guy who is, what, a 9th or 10th man, maybe?
I guess it's just who you know, but I don't know one person who is terribly excited about the Nets coming to Brooklyn or one Knicks fan who is considering changing their allegience. I don't doubt that the Nets will attract their share of Brooklynites who want to express borough pride or transplants looking to bandwagon jump like baudib (not that this is a bad thing), but I just can't see them encroaching on the Knicks market unless they become really good, really quickly. If they don't, they're going to have to expand the pie in a significant way, which is a hard thing to do. I don't think they will be unsuccessful - the location is just too good. But I do think they end up as the clear #2 team in town, rather than #1A.
Also, I think you're dramatically underestimating how successful the Mets are as a franchise.
I don't think the Mets are a relevant comparison anyway. You had three teams in NYC for the longest time, two in the National League, and suddenly they were taken away, leaving a void for non-Yankee fans which the Mets were able to fill. They'd only be relevant as a comparison here if there had been a second NY NBA team since the 1960s that got taken away five years ago. Much closer to a Jets/Islanders scenario IMO.
Maybe they're assuming the Knicks will match. It's not as if the Knicks could use that money for somebody else. They either have Fields at that price, or they have a player making the minimum. If the Knicks continue to do what the Knicks so, they match.
And, totally agree with Joel in [103] - the Celtics need some different looks offensively next season rather than "several passes and screens to set up a 19 footer". Terry would give them a bit of that, and a bit of a different energy.
I know Houston is willing to trade for Howard without an extension in place, but would GS or anyone else? Howard has said he would only sign an extension with the Nets. Granted noone (including Howard) knows what he really wants but most NBA GM aren't willing to take that risk.
I would guess Orlando would keep Howard if they did not get a good enough offer but I would think they would want something rather than let him walk for nothing, even if its random young players on reasonable contracts and a bunch of draft picks.
I generally agree with all this. I think the comparison to the Jets is instructive though. The Jets built a fanbase by pulling off the greatest upset in professional football history on the back of the most marketable star in the sport (and possibly in all of sports) at the time. Can the Nets do that? Also, I think football is sui generis in many ways.
I think Orlando's looking for a combination of salary relief and youth. The New Jersey deal seems to offer neither. This is where Houston could swoop in and still make this happen. They have a bunch of young assets, they could probably absorb Hedo, and they'll take him.
That New Jersey deal is really garbage. An injury prone one way center, a bench wing, and 3 mid-20's draft picks! Wow!
The Lakers deal still happens if LA gives up Bynum.
At this point, Orlando's new GM needs to just stop talking to Dwight and make the deal. Dwight has no clue what he wants or what he's doing, just stop even talking with him.
edit: ugh, this got posted like 2 hours after I typed it, something was wrong with my browser.
Supposedly, LAL offered Bynum + Peace = Howard. There's got to be more to the offer than that - that's kind of insulting.
WS/48 by year, starting 2006-07: .182, .160, .140, .123, .100, .092
And he's 35 to start next season. Hmm.
that's a mistake, right? could the celtics really get crawford and terry?
Moreover, why would they? (if it were in fact true)
I wouldn't take Peace. It'd have to be Bynum and Gasol.
Why would anyone give Orlando that much when everyone and their mother knows Howard has to be traded?
But, no, they wouldn't give that much.
I wouldn't take MWP if I were Orlando, either, but Bynum and Gasol is almost certainly not happening. I doubt Buss/Kupchak would do that even if Howard agreed to an extension.
The image is just the Nets logo. Woj reporting 5 years/100 million.
No. They can only get him via trade now.
If he truly wants/wanted to go to Brooklyn, he screwed up opting into his contract. That was a puzzling and idiotic move when he did it, and now looks even dumber.
I love how the comments are so bitter toward Deron.
ilyasova said to be strongly considering an offer from europe. while his big 11-12 was flukey, he's still a very nice player to have and a favorite of mine - i hope he stays (and suspect he will, though i'm not confident in that).
speaking of going to europe - vaya con dios rudy fernandez - we knew this day would come.
courtney lee now a ufa. that was a surprise.
rumor!: kidd likely to sign with nyk
rumor!: houston expected to offer lin $8m per for 3 or 4 years. reminder: they waived him, like, a few months ago.
I agree with everything you said, except how is that "Cuban's greediness"?
I like Horford. I think Bynum has higher upside.
Ugh. I don't know about that.
I don't think it matters all that much, from ORL's POV, and you can make an argument either way. Horford is good; Bynum is good. The only thing in it that I found fanboyish was when you talked about Horford's "intangibles." Bynum has his issues, but he played on 1 1/2 legs in 2010 during the playoffs and has worked through multiple lengthy rehabs to get to where he is. Lakers fans (and others) tend to forget that sometimes and focus on his negatives. Some of the stuff from last year looked bad, but I think it was partly Mike Brown's fault and neither the team nor Bynum himself underachieved. Horford seems to be a nicer guy than Bynum is, and Bynum has the history of dirty plays, and you can count that as part of the calculus if you want to, but I personally wouldn't. The problem with Bynum for me is simply whether his knee will hold up during a max deal.
As far as the Bynum/Peace offer being "insulting" one thing I have seen is that there is a lot of variation in how people see the gap between Bynum and Howard. There are those (including some Lakers fans) who think the Lakers should offer Bynum, Gasol and every draft pick they can until 2020 just for the chance to kiss Howard's ass for a year and beg him to stay. Others (mostly Lakers fans but not exclusively) seem to think that Orlando at this point should just trade Howard for Bynum and a pick or two.
If the Lakers included Metta in the offer, that was dumb, since ORL has no use for him. But given that
a) Howard says he wants out of Orlando
b) The Lakers are not the team he wants to go to
c) Howard is coming off back surgery
d) Bynum played the whole (short but intense) schedule without an injury last year
I don't see that the Lakers are necessarily well-served at this point by throwing whatever they can in addition to Bynum at a Howard deal. Also, the issue is structural, since the Lakers have no assets to trade other than Bynum, Gasol (and the ability to absorb a player with the TPE).
Maybe Hennigan will wind up taking the Brooklyn package. I should have seen that offer coming.
I am a Laker fan, and I know that I'm probably biased, but I don't give Orlando anything more than Bynum and filler. No more than 1 first round pick, and that pick should be top 20 protected.
Why the hell would you offer anything more than that to Orlando? What are they going to do about it?
I do not see this as an unreasonable position; I thought I made that clear. I have seen Lakers fans say they are OK renting Howard; they think if he is motivated he might push the team into the Finals and these people don't like Bynum and don't want to give him a max deal anyway. But in that scenario, you can't include Pau--either you keep him or use him to get a couple of guys to fill out the lineup so you can make your last try.
One problem with renting Howard is obvious: the back injury.
Zach Lowe's updated piece on today on the Howard situation (written mostly from the Orlando POV) is very good. Lowe is not enamored with the Brooklyn offer in terms of what Orlando is getting, but ISTM that with Howard on the record about one team now, Hennigan may not have much choice.
How would what you described coming to pass make the Nets a serious contender? I can see them being decent. But, how are they better than the recent Hawks, who were never close to being serious contenders?
I think Deron may be undervalued -- it was just 2 years ago that he was generally (though certainly arguably) viewed as the 2nd best point guard in the game. Being the point guard of a shitty team is a black mark but I still think he's better now than the recent Hawks' best player, whoever you think it is.
The other thing is that even if they end up where the Hawks were it's not a total death knell. What was the difference between the 2009-2012 Hawks and the 2007-2010 Mavs? Both were capped-out teams that routinely made the playoffs but didn't make any noise at all once there. Dirk was better than the best Hawk for sure, but the Mavs were a much older team as well. Dallas made a shrewd trade to get Chandler and had a lucky/great playoff run and won a championship; who's to say that the Hawks couldn't have done the same with, hell, Deron Williams? Putting yourself in that position puts you one good acquisition away from being a real contender. That never happened with the Hawks (whether due to no opportunity or bad management) but it doesn't have to end up that way. There are some other scenarios too -- I'm not a MarShon Brooks fan at all but maybe he will turn into Jason Terry, maybe Lopez will emerge, maybe the Nets will find the next Jeremy Lin, maybe they pick up an Iguodala or someone in a salary dump and he's the missing piece, things can happen here.
Deron Williams has always been overrated because of the Chris Paul thing IMO.
Horford's intangibles: I'll stand by that comment - it was meant as praise for Horford (who has long earned rave reviews in that dept), not as a knock on Bynum (who, as you likely recall, I've long liked). Just going over the checklist of things to consider, not a major point for me (particularly since a lot of the benefit of Horford's supposed tenacity and team play shows up in the box score). Bynum is, fairly unquestionably I think, the better player.
***
I've thought Deron overrated as well - but have underestimated him in the past and may be doing so now.
From 2008-10 (I'm not counting the team that won 63 games), Dallas finished an average of 7.7 games per year back of the best record in the Western Conference. In 2009 the Lakers were clearly the best team in the West during the regular season, but otherwise Dallas was within a couple of games. From 2009-12, Atlanta finished an average of 13.8 games back of the best record in the East. That includes the 66-game season, where that margin shrunk a little artificially. Only once in four years (2010) were they within 10 games of the conference's best team.
The Hawks were never one break away from beating teams like Boston, Cleveland, Miami and Orlando; they just happened to be the best of a lesser tier. While regular-season benefits favors the Mavericks given their tendency to overachieve their point differential and the Lakers' tendency to pick it up the playoffs, Dallas was almost always in the mix, but in a much larger mix because the West was so much deeper.
I guess I could have saved a lot of math there and just said LeBron, Wade and Bosh (and, when healthy, Rose).
Also, what's the alternative?
Trading a Grade A player for a bunch of Grade C's? That's never wise.
Cashing Howard in for expiring contracts, and then hoping you can attract a star in the future to a team that has nothing? That's the (distasteful) position you can be forced into when you have no building blocks at all, but Bynum is 24 years old.
I suppose a deal centered around Horford could provide a decent alternative, but I think Bynum is better.
¹ Although of course it'll mean they fired Van Gundy for no reason, but that can't be helped now.
And watch out for David Stern and his 'basketball' reasons.
re: Nash to Knicks
Will anyone give me some action on this?
and the combinations that these guys are used in could be a little problematic as well. allen and vucevic never really played extended minutes together last season, since collins didn't trust the two rookies to be on the floor together. and vucevic and hawes never really played extended minutes together, either.
it just seems to me like this season is setting up to be a lost year for at least a quarter of the roster. the logjam at forward seems to me to mean that there will be very little room for any individual player to separate himself from the rest of the crowd. and it's the same thing in the backcourt. if the sixers once again fail to trade iguodala, that again seems to me to mean that the development of holiday and turner will agian be stunted as they defer their ballhandling duties to the veteran.
i still just do not have a really positive feeling about this team's potential next year.
* - If I'm the Hornets, I wait for the Suns-Knicks deal to go through, then ask for Shumpert and Jared Dudley.
Am surprised Teletovic reportedly will take miniMLE, though not as surprised as I was to hear he was getting the full five to begin with. I ridiculed some DH to BKN talk at work yesterday ... oops?
BTW, near guarantee that Nash misses 30+ games next year.
Ugh ugh ugh, hate this deal.
I've got to say that I think all this hand-wringing about poor Sarver is absurd. Nash was a free agent. If he wanted to sign somewhere with cap space or sign for the MLE, he could do it and the Suns would get nothing. Instead, he asks Sarver to help him out and in exchange they'll make it worth his while. He gets four picks for nothing much more than being helpful. That's four more picks than he had any right to expect to get. Now good job by Sarver for playing up the tough decision angle to increase his haul, but nobody should feel sorry for him. He made out like a bandit in this deal.
And I think the "but it's the f-ing Lakers" thing is stupid too. The Suns are in the same position now that the Grizzlies were when they traded Pau. If this deal works perfectly for the Lakers and they win a championship or two with Nash, what do the Suns care? They aren't winning a championship in the next year or three with Jared Dudley and Marcin Gortat anyway. Making the Lakers better for the next couple of years is really not Phoenix's problem. They should be looking to the future, and in that vein, turning down free draft picks because #### the Lakers would have been one of the dumber things a team has done this offseason.
It's hard for me to imagine a situation where Nash has injury issues but hasn't had a significant age related decline. That's the real potential pitfall; the Lakers are paying for a 38 year old point guard who's four years older than anybody who will likely play for the Lakers next year.
I'm sure he is, but if you're going to run a team to not get roasted by the fans, you might as well not even own a team.
* - OK, fine, call it "front-running."
You could make a non-insane argument that Nash was one of the top 15 players in the league last year*, who addresses several key Lakers weaknesses (outside shooting among them). No, he can't guard people (though neither did Sessions) and, yes, he's ancient and locked up for awhile - but you're already riding with Kobe, come what may.
As for health (and age aside), though it's hard to isolate the impact of the awesome by all accounts Suns' training staff - Nash hasn't missed double digit games in a season in any of his last eleven seasons.
* For example (though this is a stat, not an argument): the guys who posted better simple ratings than Nash last year were (excl. cup of coffee dudes): Dirk, Paul and Griffin, James and Wade, Durant and Harden, Howard and Anderson - that's 9. Ginobili as well, but he only played a quarter of his team's minutes on the season.
***
I think that's was cool of Sarver to reward Nash like that, better deals were likely on the table.
It's risky, but I would have triggered on it. Agree with DK overall. Wish they could have kept the 1st in 2015.
Also, I am the opposite of shipman: I love Nash and look forward to rooting for him. I am guessing that they think this may make Howard look more favorably on LA (or maybe not).
...
Will anyone give me some action on this?
Still interested?
I think it was both the smart decision and a nice gesture on the part of the Suns, but I can't really agree with the second part. There might have been other teams willing to do a S&T for a better package, but the Suns can't control that. They only get to be in the deal at all if Nash decides to let them. If I'm Nash and Sarver rejects my personal request just because he doesn't want to do the deal with the Lakers, I'd be very tempted to say "Fine" and just cut the Suns out completely wherever I wound up going, Toronto, Dallas, wherever. There's a reason these S&T deals happen pretty much every time, including, lest we forget, in the Cleveland-Lebron-Miami debacle, and that reason is the sign-and-trading team has little-to-no leverage because they are not really giving up anything and everyone knows that it is better for them to get something rather than nothing. So I agree that is admirable of Sarver to take the heat from his fanbase and do this for Nash, but there's a very real sense in which he's getting four picks just to sign some paperwork.
For ##### sake. Why does Toronto even has a basketball team?
Jonas better be some kind of ####### miracle man.
?? Not sure what the ellipse is for. This is how team building works in the NBA--your star gets people on board.
It is frustrating as a fan to see free agent players and their old teams conspiring to rip off the new teams. You've got to be a pretty greedy #### to denude your new team of talent or picks and make it that much harder for the new team to win--I'm looking at you, Carmelo--just to add a sixth guaranteed year to your contract. The league likes it I guess because it helps to maintain competitive balance.
By raping them? The ellipse is supposed to denote a double entendre, I think.
Ah, got it.
This strikes me as a remarkably inaccurate description of what goes on in these deals. Every single party to a sign-and-trade deal can walk away if they want to. No one's getting ripped off. If the new team doesn't want to give stuff to the old team to make the S&T work, nobody's forcing them to. If they do, it's because they judge it to be worth the return.
But I also think that if it is true, it is worth noting for Bryantologists, given that Nash is many respects the anti-Kobe and serious BryantHaters,(like Joe, Abbott, Simmons, and Backlasher) often really love Steve Nash (as do many other people, of course).
I am assuming they let Sessions walk now; they don't need someone else in the backcourt who can't D up. This may open up a little daylight for Darius Morris, whose size might be useful as a third guard in cross matches and whose inexperience would, shall we say, be counterweighted by what is probably the oldest starting backcourt in NBA history.
Anyone unhappy with the Lakers getting Nash should have hope, though: Stern may just figure that Nash would make a really nice backup for Chris Paul.
One "mandate" thread is enough :)
If they do, it's because they judge it to be worth the return.
Why should the free agent have to participate in a trade to maximize his earnings? The old teams often end up with more "compensation" than they apparently have the leverage to justify. If the league wants to compensate the old teams, why not do so directly via added draft picks, etc?
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