User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
For wholesale prices on baseball gifts and equipment, check these stores out! |
Page rendered in 0.6270 seconds
54 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
I'm sure we'll talk about all of these more as the season approaches, but I think the only thing that keeps Atlanta out of the playoffs altogether is a major injury/trade to Smith or Horford. I also think Devin Harris will have a little (dead cat?) bounce back season there.
We'll see how Philly gels with Wright and Young, but I think they're more likely to make it than not if they keep Iguodala. I could also imagine a world in which Toronto takes a leap forward. Lowry is a big upgrade in the backcourt, and if Valanciunas pans out quickly, they could push for a low playoff seed.
Memphis did not have a second rounder that year. They took Conley #4 overall in the first round. I agree with you that the odds at the time of the trade didn't look very good for Memphis. While they couldn't have known Marc would be as good as he's been (since nobody can see the future), they probably valued getting Marc Gasol at that point more than they would have valued a random mid 2nd round pick.
(To be clear - this is not about me, this is about how people dismissed Gasol.)
while ignoring the financial flexibility that the deal got them, you are completely missing the point.
Additionally, while the other players and picks that they got besides M. Gasol didn't turn out to be much themselves, they turned them into Darrell Arthur and Mo Speights, who were the primary reserve big men on the two playoff teams they've had.
I agree with this, the odds that they become a playoff team as quickly as they did after the trade were not great. However, I would also like to ask: Compared to what? They were 13-33 when they made the trade. They finished the season 22-60. They were 22-60 the year before. Their previous playoff team had come and gone, they were paying Pau a lot of money, they sucked, and he was their most marketable asset. They got some flexibility in the cap and bottom line, they collected a bunch of players, one of whom really panned out, and the others they were able to turn into some other useful players. Acting like this is the biggest travesty of a trade ever is pretty much just whining about the fact that the Lakers were the ones who got Pau.
Complaining about Stern vetoing the Paul trade is pretty much just whining too. Complaining about the Rose/Noah injuries is pretty much just whining. Hell, complaining about pretty much any "what if" scenario is mainly just whining. We're fans; it's what we do. :)
Edit: And personally, it had nothing to do with the Lakers. I'd have been just as upset if some other team that was already a contender got another star while seemingly giving up little in return.
Phoenix's roster:
PG - Dragic, Telfair, Marshall
SG - Dudley, Brown
SF - Beasley
PF - Scola, Ma. Morris, Warrick
C - Gortat, Frye
Meanwhile, Robin Lopez is in RFA-land. Also, the Suns have made noises about bringing back Michael Redd.
Drafting is a very inexact science and unless you have the #1 pick and Shaquille O'Neal or LeBron James is in the draft, there is always a chance to get it wrong, and all teams make mistakes. But it will be hard for Memphis to get by those decisions and take their team to the next step.
foye to utah on a 1 yr deal
suns to sign pj tucker (!)
chi can't match asik, by virtue of belinelli signing (bae); will likely pay tax for 1st time in club history
If he had vetoed the Pau trade, it would have been about as deus ex machina as you could possibly imagine, which is why I think he shouldn't have done it, even though the trade stank. But he was acting as the owner of the friggin team, and in every major deal, the owner has to be part of the "consenting teams". If Marc Cuban killed a deal tomorrow, people would just call that business as usual.
Your argument is basically that while under the ownership of the league, the team should de facto act without anybody filling the role of an owner. I think that's unfair towards the people in that organization, and the fans of the team, and I think it's ethically wrong. Once the league accepts the ownership, it to attempt to fill that role as best as it can for the franchise.
No, the argument would be that the league shouldn't buy teams because it creates these situations. And if they do buy the team, they should appoint a head of basketball operations, give him a budget, and let him make the decisions independently of league interference to avoid the conflicts of interest that league ownership. I'll point out that all the stories from around the time that deal was vetoed indicated that pretty much everyone thought that the second scenario I mentioned was in fact the case up until Stern stepped in.
Rumor! Hornets pursuing Robin Lopez. If affordable enough, he's probably a good guy to have next to Davis. He's solid, but can play a supporting role as Davis emerges.
Rumor is ak is coming back to the states - surprising given how late in the FA season it is and his 4m (tax free) deal w cska. Dude still has it - euro league MVP - I'd take him on my team 8 days out of 7.
Has to be vet min doesn't it?
Agree, is there a contender he wouldn't help? I guess the russkies have the inside track on getting him.
AK: Supposedly, he won't take the min w/ Brooklyn (understandably).
Lin+Fields or
Felton+Brewer?
I go Lin-Fields, but the difference isn't necessarily super huge. The allure of Lin for me (apart from marketing whatsits) is variance - if he improves his d, cuts down on turnovers, etc...
AK: Supposedly, he won't take the min w/ Brooklyn (understandably).
The Rockets have cap space, and I'm not sure if they have enough PFs on their roster.
chi can't match asik, by virtue of belinelli signing (bae); will likely pay tax for 1st time in club history
I still don't think they handled the cap that creatively, so they're hard capped out at this point. The Asik offer made it tough. And Zach Lowe had an article about how the Bulls have downgraded this year.
That depends on how Felton's going to be used. Felton and STAT were a good pick-and-roll duo in the D'Antoni, but it doesn't seem as if the Knicks are going to be running anything like that. If Felton's just going to be feeding Carmelo and spotting up, that's not going to be good. They'll probably play better defense (Felton - 20 pounds sounds good on paper) and turn the ball over less, but I don't think they'll pass as well, they won't be as good at putting the ball in the basket, and they stretch the defense even less than Lin-Fields. The win here may be that they stayed the same, but are playing less for it. The thing is, Lin and Fields had upside. With Felton and Brewer, you know you're getting what you paid for, and you very well might get less.
rumors!
Tom Penn might be the new Sixers GM.
Dooling to stay with Boston.
AJ Price to WAS (not a rumor, fact. also, snore.)
I'm very OK with RoLo not returning. For one, it would mean the backup C is Frye - and he's much better as a center than at PF.
It's the little things that make it funny. The 87 emails between him and Lindelof about "Lost" was precious.
He's comparing himself to Korver in the first part there.
in the D'antonibefore Amar'e broke downFTFY. Not sure why people keep attributing so much of Felton and Amare's old success to Felton, ignoring that a.) Lin was really good in the PnR with Chandler and b.) STAT sucked last year because of physical problems, which he may or may not have recovered from, not because of Lin/Melo.
Here's what's beautiful about the NBA: I have no idea if this is sarcastic or not.
LOL.
Der k, I've started introducing texts with "rumor!" Nice work.
Well yeah, a used up and discarded scratcher is also a lottery ticket.
Don't mean to kill you on this. I disagree with your assessment of the Suns' offseason. They lost a guy who is likely to go into the HOF and replaced him with a guy who had a somewhat fluky good half-season. They picked up Beasley, who probably isn't very good, and Scola, who is on the downside of his career.
They won 33 games last year (41 in a full season), and they look to be worse next year. They're in the worst place in the NBA, in my opinion, the 30-40 win purgatory without cap space, flexibility or valuable assets. I would have blown it up as soon as it was clear that you weren't keeping Nash.
* - Team option in 12-13.
Beasley probably is the lottery ticket of the Suns' offseason. And at $18MM over 3, one that won't cripple the team if it doesn't work out. Scola, I'll agree, is on the downside of his career - but the Suns still got a low-post threat for practically nothing! $13.5MM over 3; $9MM over 2 (player option in the third year). That's fantastic value.
You need to look at Phoenix's cap and draft situation, not to mention where they are in the rebuilding cycle (just starting), and rethink this statement. Next summer, they'll be $16MM under the cap with three first-round picks.
Nash, because of his kids, wanted to stay in Phoenix as long as possible. Sarver obliged him, so there never was going to be a trade.
You have a very strange definition of lottery ticket. I do agree with you, generally, that the Suns offseason was effective though.
That is not enough to make a max offer. That is not a good cap situation. A good cap situation is when you can make two max offers. If you're not in the playoffs (or going to be there within a year), you should be trying to get to a good cap situation. I think this is pretty close to a truism.
No, I mean, trade Gortat, don't sign Dragic, don't sign Beasley, bottom out and try for high picks.
Phoenix might have 3 first rounders, but are any of them going to be below #10?
Probably not, but that doesn't mean they lack value.
It doesn't seem to work for me without the exclamation point:
Rumor:
Rumor!
Yeah, I like the second one better.
Foye to Utah; Brewer to New York
* Neither Wesley Johnson nor Michael Beasley will be as good as Chauncey Billups, obviously.
Warriors sign Kent Bazemore. I never saw him play in college, but he looked very good in the summer league.
Rumor Wolves!
This can't be right. His contract is already on the Wolves. It was non-guaranteed, but the guarantee date has passed, so I'm not sure how his retirement impacts that payment/cap accounting in this deal.
1. I think Miller would go to Phoenix, not Minnesota.
2. Miller could, if I understand correctly, have agreed to postpone that date (if the team agrees, which they would). This presumably would've already happened, if necessary.
Too bad. He was a fun player to watch when he wasn't sulking and he was a nice guy when I ran into him at the mall a few years back.
PG- Ricky!, Ridnour, Barea
SG- Roy, Shved
SF- Kirilenko, Williams
PF- Love, Cunningham (but really Williams)
C- Pekovic, Stiemsma
My speculation was that there is a lot of variability in the back court. An average return by Ricky and getting 2010 Brandon Roy would probably get into the low 40s. If one of those guys exceeds expectations- and they are doing a good job getting my hopes on unrealistically on Roy- then there is probably upside to get into the high 40s, or even low 50s if they both play well.
It was probably over a girl. Kirilenko wanted to cash in his annual golden ticket, but then she saw the Sloan Hands.
Oh yeah! It's an embarrassment of average players. It's like the Wolves rented out a giant garage to park 12 Honda Accords in it.
From what I remember, AK was upset that he wasn't getting enough touches; he was the highest paid player on the team and he'd been probably their best player from 2004-2006, but in 2007 the Jazz were having their best season in years and they didn't really need Andrei to be as big a part of their offense as he'd been in the past. Williams had come into his own, Boozer was finally healthy and made the All Star team, Okur made the team as well, and Sloan wanted AK to focus more on D and stop worrying about his role on O. I remember quotes in the local papers where Kirilenko (who always struck me as a pretty sensitive guy) said something along the lines of how he didn't want to just be a robot in Sloan's system and he wanted to be traded to a team like Phoenix or LAL that would let him run. From personal observation, he seemed to start sulking after this and just standing around on offense rather than even trying to make cuts or getting himself involved, and thus his role in the offense diminished even further (I think he was down to a career low 8 ppg or something that season).
And while he was never more than a 4th option or so on the Jazz ever again, things did blow over and he started getting more involved and was back up to 11 ppg or something for the rest of his Jazz tenure.
I hope the Jazz retire his number; from the Ivan Drago flat top, to the fo-hawk, to the weird euro-mullet, the hair alone warrants it. All the blocked shots and boxscore filling was just gravy.
Better than the embarrassment of below-average players they had last year.
Absolutely. I am excited.
I'd say no. My guess would be around 45ish and a 7th or 8th seed.
Do you disagree that they have 7 league average players or are you low on Love?
Even when Roy was playing hurt in a system that froze him out, he was only a little below average. To me, he could range from below average to quite good, but with the significant caveat of health at every point along the way.
Maybe a little of both. I think I agree with Spivey about Roy; I'm a bit skeptical that Roy is even average at this point, but I totally think it was worth it for the Wolves to take the gamble.
I'm actually a big fan of Love, but his shooting percentage is already a bit low for what you'd want from a superstar big man, so part of me fears his numbers may have been boosted a bit by the "best player on a bad team" factor.
I think 50 wins is also assuming Rubio develops really quickly, so I'm sticking with 45 for the first year of the new look Wolves. Seems like a safer bet. Maybe 50 the following season.
Edit: And I wouldn't mind at all being wrong. I'd like to see the Wolves successful again.
This seems inaccurate to me. His vanilla shooting percentage is lower than a lot of big men because he takes (and makes) a lot more threes. For example, his true shooting percentage was essentially the same as Dwight Howard's last year on slightly higher usage despite Dwight's normal shooting percentage being 125 pts higher because Love makes threes and is actually a good free throw shooter rather than the total clown at the line that Dwight is.
But part of that may be because I never liked Luis Scola. :)
D-Wade and Dirk had higher usage and slightly lower TS% than Love. A handful of guys like Pierce, Griffin, Kyrie and Dwight were lower but pretty close on both. Actually, Dwight's TS% was 0.1% higher.
Cuz I'm lazy and rarely bother looking up numbers beyond the basic basketball ref ones. :)
Like I said, I really do hope Love is as good as others seem to think and that my doubts are primarily a function of my own laziness.
1. Thunder
2. Spurs
3. Lakers (probably improved in spite of age issue)
4. Clippers (probably somewhat improved)
5. Grizzlies
6. Nuggets
Utah, Dallas, and Minnesota are probably the next three. It is hard for me to see Minnesota above 5th, barring stuff like major injuries to Chris Paul and Andrew Bynum and a big comeback from Roy. (certainly possible).
Good point, but the caveat I'd add is that, especially with someone like Roy, you never know when the other shoe might drop healthwise.
Are you familiar with the work of one Wes Johnson?
Yup. Very different knee problems and trajectories, but we're looking at Love and a bunch of average guys, Love + borderline star and a bunch of average guys, or Love + 2 borderline stars and a bunch of average guys.
I would remove the gap between SA and LA, but I agree with the presumption that those are the 6 best teams.
Rank. Team (range of possible rank)
1. Miami (1)
2. Boston (2-6)
3. Indiana (2-5)
(half gap)
4. Brooklyn (2-6)
5. New York (3-8)
6. Chicago?? (2-9; no idea what to do with them)
7. Atlanta (4-9)
8. Philadelphia (5-9; got worse, IMO, though maybe the youngsters improve some)
9. Orlando (4-12; #9 assumes Howard gets traded between now and February)
I could see Milwaukee making a run at the playoffs, along with maybe Washington (they seem like they could go 38-44 with their upgraded roster and a stepforward from Wall) or Cleveland (big year 2 for Irving?).
The only thing I'm sure of on that list is #1.
I agree with all that; it just seems to me that the west's days of 2008-2010 when even the 8th seed won 50 games (k, 48 in 2009) and there wasn't much difference between seeds 2-8 are in the past (at least for now). I'm seeing a pretty big gap between the top 5 and the bottom 3 (or 4, since there could easily be a >.500 team left on the sidelines).
I'd guess it goes down something like this:
1) Thunder: 60-22
2) Lakers: 57-25 (should be improved with the addition of Nash)
3) Spurs: 55-27 (concerns about the severity of Parker's eye injury?)
4) Clips: 52-30
5) Grizz: 51-31
6) Mavs: 46-36
7) Nuggs: 46-36
8) Jazz: 45-37
9) Wolves: 45-37 (can't pick against my boys, sorry)
Obviously all this changes if Lakers or Rockets get Howard, or if Dallas gets someone, or if there's major injuries, etc, etc.
What does everyone see in the Nuggets that I'm not seeing? I'm not really seeing why they should appear to be clearly better than the Jazz/Mavs/Wolves group...
In general that's totally true, but I'm not sure it will be with BRoy. In his last season in Portland, some nights his knees were good enough for him to play at a level close to his peak, but a lot of other nights they weren't. I don't see any reason to think his basketball skills have eroded, so it's just a question of how well his knees will hold up to the day-in-and-day-out of the season. I'm pretty pessimistic about the signing, though I hope I'm wrong, but I think the danger here is that he shows glimpses some nights, but more often doesn't have it, and continues to struggle with living with a diminished role. It'll be harder for the TWolves to decide what to do with a guy who's great say 20% of the time and sucks 80% than what to do with someone who does or doesn't have what they're looking for from him.
Jazz and Wolves have youth, and also a good possibility of improvement from some key players.
If there's an upside here, it's that Adelman has extensive experience coaching former stars who suffered career-altering injuries. He had to help T-Mac, Yao, Webber, Mullin, and Mark Price reintegrate themselves as lesser players after severe injuries.
Utah has some very young guys, and that excites stat analysts and fans and may pay off long-term, but in terms of next year, I will take Denver as the better team.
Dallas, cleverly run as usual, has a done a nice job of spackling with older vets + Mayo and setting themselves up to try to snake their way in and get Paul and Howard one year from now, but they are still relying on many older players and their ceiling is lower than it has been. Denver lacks a superstar, but they have a group of guys who are still in their primes or around it, and have proven they can play some. Ditto Memphis.
That's pretty much what I think about them, and also why I don't see them as being clearly better than the Jazz, for example. They have some nice pieces, but like the Jazz, teams without a true superstar generally have a ceiling as to how good they can be, and that ceiling is usually less than 50 wins. I see Memphis as a bit of an exception - I don't see them as being a true championship contender without a top 10 type player, but the Gay/Randolph/Gasol trio is pretty damn good and should easily lift them above the Utah's and Denver's.
I think the Jazz will pretty much stay where they were last season cuz their two best players are what they are - Millsap and Jefferson have been the same players for a few years now and I think they've pretty much hit their ceiling and aren't likely to take another leap forward. But the Jazz CAN improve if Hayward and especially Favors develop quickly. I could even see Kanter, Burks, and Evans becoming productive regulars rather than just the end of the bench filler players Corbin used them as last season. The "loss" of Howard, Miles, and Bell should be a case of addition by subtraction.
I haven't followed their team too closely, but do any of Denver's youngens have the upside of Favors, or even Hayward?
With Love as the centerpiece, I see Minny as having a higher ceiling than either the Jazz or Nuggs, but I don't think they'll make that leap in a single season.
An argument can be made for McGee, and possibly Lawson. I think most of Denver's guys have topped out, though. What you see is what you're going to get, and it's just not good enough to jump into that contender group.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main