Around the NBA II

[TucsonClip]

Budenholzer to the Bucks.

Nice down payment on Middleton re-signing there summer 2019.


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Lowry and DeRozan vs Giannis and Middleton? Easy choice for me if I'm a coach.

Middleton, Brogdon, Giannis fit his system so well.

[QRich3]

Yeah he's a great fit for the Bucks and they're gonna be fun to watch. However, I'm not so sure I'd be so quick to pick them before the Raptors if I'm him, I'm not sure I trust their FO enough to put the right pieces around those guys once all of the bad contracts they gave expire. And on the other hand, you can always trust Masai to find good players out of nothing.

[og15]

As a coach you're usually be better off taking the team with the better star player, and there are other solid pieces on the roster as long as you can get them to work. Bud has shown the he can get a team to work and can maximize them. Raptors IMO already had a good coach, and Bud can't do much more than get them to 59 RS wins and against Cleveland, he wins one more game maybe? Bucks on the other hand can be argued to have never yet had good coaching with their guys.

Masai definitely has a much better track record than the Bucks FO, agreed, but I'd take the opportunity of trying to build something great around Giannis over trying to get Toronto over the hump.

[Ranma]

Doesn't he compare notes with Portland's owner?

Maybe but he apparently doesn't take Paul Allen's advice since Allen warned him that it would be a disaster to have a coach also be a GM. It took him how long to finally relieve Doc of his GM duties? And now, against better judgment, Ballmer is apparently going to extend Doc. Talk about not learning lessons from the past or experienced colleagues.

[esqtvd]

Doesn't he compare notes with Portland's owner?

Maybe but he apparently doesn't take Paul Allen's advice since Allen warned him that it would be a disaster to have a coach also be a GM. It took him how long to finally relieve Doc of his GM duties? And now, against better judgment, Ballmer is apparently going to extend Doc. Talk about not learning lessons from the past or experienced colleagues.

LOL reality check

Blazers haven't won anything either and Terry Stotts is now entering his 7th year as coach

and Olshey has boxed them in far more than Doc as GM ever did

Mired in Mediocrity
Unfortunately, unlike the 2008 team, the 2018 Blazers have little potential for significant improvement. Much has been written about the miserable summer of 2016, and, suffice to say, it continues to haunt the team.

General Manager Neil Olshey has committed $99 million of next season’s $101 million salary cap to Lillard, CJ McCollum, Leonard, Al-Farouq Aminu, Zach Collins, Caleb Swanigan, and salary being paid out to “stretched” players. The Blazers have $98.5 million tied up to the same group of players the next season, minus Aminu. Signing free agents to anything more than a mid-level exception will be impossible for the foreseeable future.

To make matters even worse, most of Portland’s tradeable players – Nurkic, Napier, Ed Davis, Pat Connaughton – will be free agents this summer, limiting their trade utility and making it more difficult to pull off the mythical consolidation trade. And without cap space the Blazers lack the flexibility to absorb prospects for free, a la the Harkless trade two years ago.

The Blazers did have a chance to immediately improve this summer by using one of their three first round picks to draft one of several players likely to make an immediate impact. Instead they traded two picks for one and chose long-term project Zach Collins at No. 10 and current D-Leaguer Caleb Swanigan at No. 26.

The Collins choice has become even more painful as Donovan Mitchell, selected by the Jazz at No. 13, has flourished. Ordinarily, it’s unfair to second guess draft picks, but at least one person in the Blazers’ organization had Mitchell on his radar.

https://www.sbnation.com/2018/4/22/17267718/portland-trail-blazers-future-sweep-nba-playoffs-2018

“This narrative that if you don’t win a championship then it’s not worth competing, that’s a false premise. There’s got to be an intrinsic joy of watching your team play well and compete. If it’s just about the end result and not about the journey, then what’s the point?”--Neal Olshey

[Quake Griffin]

Doesn't he compare notes with Portland's owner?

Maybe but he apparently doesn't take Paul Allen's advice since Allen warned him that it would be a disaster to have a coach also be a GM. It took him how long to finally relieve Doc of his GM duties? And now, against better judgment, Ballmer is apparently going to extend Doc. Talk about not learning lessons from the past or experienced colleagues.

LOL reality check

Blazers haven't won anything either and Terry Stotts is now entering his 7th year as coach

and Olshey has boxed them in far more than Doc as GM ever did

Mired in Mediocrity
Unfortunately, unlike the 2008 team, the 2018 Blazers have little potential for significant improvement. Much has been written about the miserable summer of 2016, and, suffice to say, it continues to haunt the team.

General Manager Neil Olshey has committed $99 million of next season’s $101 million salary cap to Lillard, CJ McCollum, Leonard, Al-Farouq Aminu, Zach Collins, Caleb Swanigan, and salary being paid out to “stretched” players. The Blazers have $98.5 million tied up to the same group of players the next season, minus Aminu. Signing free agents to anything more than a mid-level exception will be impossible for the foreseeable future.

To make matters even worse, most of Portland’s tradeable players – Nurkic, Napier, Ed Davis, Pat Connaughton – will be free agents this summer, limiting their trade utility and making it more difficult to pull off the mythical consolidation trade. And without cap space the Blazers lack the flexibility to absorb prospects for free, a la the Harkless trade two years ago.

The Blazers did have a chance to immediately improve this summer by using one of their three first round picks to draft one of several players likely to make an immediate impact. Instead they traded two picks for one and chose long-term project Zach Collins at No. 10 and current D-Leaguer Caleb Swanigan at No. 26.

The Collins choice has become even more painful as Donovan Mitchell, selected by the Jazz at No. 13, has flourished. Ordinarily, it’s unfair to second guess draft picks, but at least one person in the Blazers’ organization had Mitchell on his radar.

https://www.sbnation.com/2018/4/22/17267718/portland-trail-blazers-future-sweep-nba-playoffs-2018

“This narrative that if you don’t win a championship then it’s not worth competing, that’s a false premise. There’s got to be an intrinsic joy of watching your team play well and compete. If it’s just about the end result and not about the journey, then what’s the point?”--Neal Olshey

What's this got to do with whether or not he was given sound advice?

[MartinToVaught]

LOL reality check

Blazers haven't won anything either and Terry Stotts is now entering his 7th year as coach

So because another team's GM did a poor job, that justifies all of GM Doc's terrible decisions?

[esqtvd]

reading comprehension

Paul Allen and the Blazers are about the worst example to try to d-bag Doc [and Ballmer] with

[Quake Griffin]

Cheat Code Warriors by 41 over a pretty good team tonight.

[MartinToVaught]

Still not missing CP3 one bit. I'm glad we're not paying the supermax for this version of him.

[Quake Griffin]

I miss him. Pause.

I'm glad we aren't paying him the super max though. It's complicated.

[Roscoe Sheed]

Still not missing CP3 one bit. I'm glad we're not paying the supermax for this version of him.

He is a very good player still but he looks slower and overweight. His athleticism has been in steady decline for years. He struggles to beat guys off the dribble now and at his height that is a glaring weakness

[esqtvd]

Still not missing CP3 one bit. I'm glad we're not paying the supermax for this version of him.

He is a very good player still but he looks slower and overweight. His athleticism has been in steady decline for years. He struggles to beat guys off the dribble now and at his height that is a glaring weakness

good eye

Something’s Not Quite Right With Chris Paul
Houston’s floor general isn’t on any injury reports, but he certainly doesn’t look to be healthy. Can the Rockets get past Golden State without him at full strength?

Houston looked outmatched once again Sunday night. Harden faded. The role players didn’t hit shots like they did in Game 2. And Paul struggled mightily. It looked like he took the “drag his leg to the finish line” comment seriously, as he posted 13 points on 16 shot attempts and finished up a minus-18. Paul’s typical impact on the Rockets’ rhythm wasn’t just erased; it was used against his own team.

Paul missed six of his eight 3s and three of his patented midrange jumpers. He turned the ball over twice and was swallowed up by the Warriors’ athleticism on most of his drives to the rim. The guard went to the free throw line only twice the entire game. And in the third quarter, when Curry decided to make the game his own one-man show, it was Paul who was left in the dust as the Warriors point guard raced by him on what seemed like every trip down the floor.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/5/21/17377242/chris-paul-injury-houston-rockets

[esqtvd]

I miss him. Pause.

I'm glad we aren't paying him the super max though. It's complicated.

And his grass is no greener in HOU.

CP's my favorite Clipper of all time. But it was time to go. It was not going to work. He knew it, we knew it, and the Clippers brass knew it, I think. Just like Doc made no huge effort to keep DJ--it was DJ who came crawling back to Doc via his son Spencer

https://deadspin.com/deandre-jordan-snapchatted-doc-riverss-son-not-austin-1729974381


I get the same impression that Doc and Ballmer made only a cosmetic attempt to keep Chris. No big powwow about where to go from here:

Chris, you're our rock. You're our present, and you're our future. You are the Clipper GOAT. Here's your supermax $217 million, just sign right here.

So let's get down to business. Should we dump DJ? Keep JJ? Should we take that mythical offer and swap Austin for his fellow future Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony? Resign Blake? Or just re-sign him then flip him for Tobias Harris, a FRP and that 7-foot-3 mutant from Serbia?

Check out Doc's postmortem.

Watch on YouTube

Chris played his way [slow], not Doc's [pace, ball movement], but Doc could hardly argue with Chris's results. LAC had never won 50 games until Chris's arrival, and Doc walked onto Chris's team--probably at Chris's insistence that they fire Vinnie [and get a black coach?]--not vice-versa.

Chris took his act on the road to Houston in search of playoff success. The irony is that his numbers are below his career playoff averages in every category except rebounds. [As if CP was brought in to rebound.]

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/paulch01.html#playoffs_per_game::none


Mr Q is quite right. Paying Chris the 5-yr max--esp at age 32--would have been franchise suicide. Houston has a huge ethical/political/financial-salcap problem in front of them. Chris came with full good will, asking for no guarantees, walking away from $200M+ with LAC.

Now in 2018, a fair market value contract--for his contributions on the floor alone--would be 3 yrs/$75-90M, half of what CP might have got from Ballmer.

I love CP with all my heart, but he's an aging 20th century man playing in the 21st century, and time is not kind.

[Quake Griffin]

First close game in the conference finals brehs.

Tune in for this finish.

[Quake Griffin]

So happy for CP and Houston.
Beard too....shotout LA Hoopers.

I don't think they can do it but holy hell, it's a 3 game series...it's a race to 2 wins.
Daryl Morey wanted THIS scenario when he put this team together.

[og15]

If the Rockets pull it off, that will be quite the story

[nickhx2]

can't stand gs but i dislike harden probably more than anyone else in the league. even more than draymond maybe. and i detest the warriors. i don't want the rockets to win one more game.

i appreciate what cp3 did for the franchise as the best player we've ever had. but i don't really give a damn what he wins if he's not on the clippers.

[Ranma]

Still not missing CP3 one bit. I'm glad we're not paying the supermax for this version of him.

I miss him. Pause.

I'm glad we aren't paying him the super max though. It's complicated.

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[Quake Griffin]

YA MAMA!

Watch on YouTube

Great performance down the stretch. Big Trey ball in Klay's face at 2:00 in the video.