MN DAL MIL WAS (you will hate it)

[Buck You]

If this happened I would buy a Timberwolves jersey to show my support.

[the_bruce]

RJ might still play defense (overrated part of his game) but Redd hasn't and will not play defense. That line up isn't all that solid. If the Bucks had been injury free this year they would have been maybe the 7-8th seed in the East. Love and Jefferson are better than CV and Bogut, but is the difference enough for the Wolves to make the playoffs in the West? I think not.
You are overrating both RJ and Redd.

I question how good your memory is of this season, or whether you actually watch the wolves play. Our guard play was horrific Nov/Dec(5-27). It was almost ok in Jan(10-4) before al went down. In nov/dec there were at least 12 games the wolves could have won with modestly better play. Not only that but that was with the horrific shooting of Miller\Foye\McCants all through those months.

So you are saying defensively Redd < MM, Foye, Bassy, McCants, Gomes.

I mean at worst its equal. Plus Redd is an actual threat to score in a fairly consistent manner. I don't even like Redd, but wtf lets look at it this way. Redd > Foye for at least 2 more years.

As for the west besides the Lakers I highly doubt any team could match the talent of that lineup 2-5.

You drop east and west like it still means the east is weak too. Which annoys me. In fact does anyone actually think the top 5 teams in the west are better than the top 5 in the east? CLE BOS ORL ATL MIA or LAL SAS DEN HOU UTAH. It's pretty obvious the east is stronger imo....

The bucks are 4 games out right now and they lacked Redd and Bogut for huge parts of the season. Do you think a healthy MIL team is any worse than...PHI DET CHI CHA?! Not many teams can compete with CLE BOS ORL LAL. I certainly think that MN lineup is far stronger in the west than the east.

You underrate RJ & Redd as fits to the wolves based on their contracts and don't take into account that the wolves played some very good basketball carried solely on the back of Al. You also insert opinions I never interjected about overrating Redd\RJ. I never stated they were worth their contracts, I never said they were ZOMG TEH BESTS. I did however post detailed and likely situational analysis about how much more this would cost than simply overpaying with our capspace and getting the exact same caliber of player while being locked into a multi year deal via FA's & holdingonto foye.

Here's a beter glance with more numbers....

~+15m total as is....(assuming MN gets 2FA's and retains Foye)
~0 to -3m total if one of RJ or Redd opt out (can use this space for a FA as mn would have before)
-33m if both opt out (can use this space for a FA as mn would have before)
Both are expirings that could be used in a trade if they don't opt out.
If one of them opts out MN has capspace, lots of youth, and actually looks like a desirable FA destination as we are willing to spend money to win.
Both players are great offensive compliments to al
Both players are at worst equal defenders to what we have now
Not locked into 5 year deals with FA's
Are these sorts of trades gambles. Yes. Instead of trying to win later and drafting for a few more years. why not spend the capspace now when it's a buyers market. Getting solid players as good as we'd get in the future, a lotto pick, and of course time for the picks to develop.

[B Calrissian]

Considering the Mavs are 8th in the West but would be 4th in East I would say it is still harder to get into the playoffs in the West.
Saying Redd's defense is at worst equal to Gomes' defense is overrating him.
Trading for one of RJ or Redd would be a gamble. Trading for both would be foolish.

[the_bruce]

WAS IN: Stackhouse $7.25 + Redd ($17 - 2 yr)
WAS OUT: #3 + Etan ($7.4) + Mike James ($6.5) + Stevenson ($3.9 - 2 yr) + Songalia (4.5 - 2 yr)

WHY THEY DON'T SAY NO: WAS wants to compete next year, but Abe Pollin has to be questioning if he got his money's worth whthis season, when he signed Jamison and faced the 2009 lux tax. This move improves the team by upgrading Stevenson to Redd, clears deadwood, and with Stackhouse's instant $5 mil TPE, slides them under the lux as well. Earlier trades had them trading the pick just to move a contract .. this one moves all their contracts and gives them a serious upgrade as well.

Shrink I don't think this gets WAS under the lux. It adds ~1.5m salary. Bringing them around 77.5m. Minus stack would get them around 72.5m? Isn't the lux 71.xxx, and isn't it rumored to decrease next season? Even then they'd need some cash to fill out the roster. 5 open spots. Fill at least 3 of them with vet min players. 2.1m + the 1m they are over. They'd need to cut ~3m more at current lux levels to stay under.

The cash swing by getting under is...
3m(additional contract they'd send out) + 3m(lux share) + 2m(doubled money they are over) = 8m
minus the ~2m for vet min players = +6m + 10m(stack doubled) = saves 16m

...but only if blatche is included.

math may be a bit off all in my head and from glancing at sham. Actually including critt may do the trick since McGuire isn't guarenteed, but that only gets them below lux and they still have open slots. 2nd rounders perhaps

.....maybe include critt to make salaries even and send perkovic. Plus some 2nds to help fill the roster cheaply.

[the_bruce]

Considering the Mavs are 8th in the West but would be 4th in East I would say it is still harder to get into the playoffs in the West.
Saying Redd's defense is at worst equal to Gomes' defense is overrating him.
Trading for one of RJ or Redd would be a gamble. Trading for both would be foolish.

rofl going off of the w/l records?! what kind of logic is that? The spurs are #2 in the west and they'd be #4 in the east as well. If you got to play the rebuilding OKC/MN/MEM/SAC 4 times instead of 2 each year. You'd have 8 more wins in the east! Not to mention GSW/LAC overhauled completely. If DAL had to play CLE/BOS/ORL 2 times more each year they'd be #6 in the east! You can verify this fairly easily. Goto NBA standings. Look at the CONF win portion. Notice how the west teams have a slight edge over their east counterparts in CONF wins, aka easier to win games conf games in the west.

of all those ppl you pick gomes to compare. gomes is often outmatched by speed or strength to the point of unwatchable. Regardless none of them are great defenders and I never said Redd was but certainly not a downgrade when compared to the wolvs players.

yawn.

[B Calrissian]

You aren't considering all the injuries the Warriors, Clippers, and Jazz have had this year? I am sure they will be have this many injuries next year too when Redd/Rj guide the Wolves to the playoffs.. The Wizards and Bucks were also hit with a ton of injuries but that is nothing new with those teams.

Gomes might be outmatched by speed or strength but he still plays better defense than Redd. I can't believe someone argue otherwise.

And I wasn't aware nba teams played an 86 game season.

Yawn.

[Mattya]

Considering the Mavs are 8th in the West but would be 4th in East I would say it is still harder to get into the playoffs in the West.
Saying Redd's defense is at worst equal to Gomes' defense is overrating him.
Trading for one of RJ or Redd would be a gamble. Trading for both would be foolish.

rofl going off of the w/l records?! what kind of logic is that? The spurs are #2 in the west and they'd be #4 in the east as well. If you got to play the rebuilding OKC/MN/MEM/SAC 4 times instead of 2 each year. You'd have 8 more wins in the east! Not to mention GSW/LAC overhauled completely. If DAL had to play CLE/BOS/ORL 2 times more each year they'd be #6 in the east! You can verify this fairly easily. Goto NBA standings. Look at the CONF win portion. Notice how the west teams have a slight edge over their east counterparts in CONF wins, aka easier to win games conf games in the west.

of all those ppl you pick gomes to compare. gomes is often outmatched by speed or strength to the point of unwatchable. Regardless none of them are great defenders and I never said Redd was but certainly not a downgrade when compared to the wolvs players.

yawn.

rofl

what kind of logic are you using. Indiana, New Jersey, Milwaukee, Charlotte, New York, Toronto, and Wizards suck too. All but one of those teams (charlotte) would be above .500 if, and i stress if, they won all their games against the West bottom feeders. I mean, the Nets can't even beat the Twolves without Al Jefferson. Im sorry but all those teams are crap teams too, they only win because the feed off of eachother. Just because sacto sucked against the east this season doesn't mean the other teams are just as bad. Do a little more research, watch some scores.

San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Utah, LA, and Denver would get a lot more wins too if they got to paly the Wizards, NY, Indiana, and Toronto 4 times instead of 2. 1-4 is good in the east, 5 to the bottom, not so much.

[the_bruce]

You aren't considering all the injuries the Warriors, Clippers, and Jazz have had this year? I am sure they will be have this many injuries next year too when Redd/Rj guide the Wolves to the playoffs.. The Wizards and Bucks were also hit with a ton of injuries but that is nothing new with those teams.

Gomes might be outmatched by speed or strength but he still plays better defense than Redd. I can't believe someone argue otherwise.

And I wasn't aware nba teams played an 86 game season.

Yawn.

1) Every team has injuries. I think I pointed this out in on of my posts? GSW\LAC are basicly new teams from a year ago. The Jazz have a very solid bench and team in general. Millisap stepped in to boozers roll fine. Deron wasn't out more than a month at the beginning of the season. AK47 always has small nagging injuries. Okur had a few nagging injuries, but the only big impact was Boozer and millisap filled that role for the team.

Regardless, the whole point of my initial comment is you can't look at the records and make statements like OMG DAL would so be #4 in the east when there are tons of factors that need to be accounted for and as you have pointed out injuries are one of those parts. There are tons of variables, and making broad brush statements like you did don't reflect anything about the strength of the conference or how difficult it is to make the playoffs in east vs west.

2) eyeroll

3) I scanned through my post and there was no mention of an 86 game season. I'm startled how you could draw this conclusion. Maybe you simply like to state things that I never said. Or maybe you are saying that I infer this by....

If DAL had to play CLE/BOS/ORL 2 times more each year they'd be #6 in the east!

...But that would be 6 more games tacked onto an 82 game season? 6+82=88. I'm not sure what to think of this or what you meant by it. I assume that it is something to do with the above and you didn't add correctly??!

Do a little more research, watch some scores.

ok. Here is your challenge. Since you think you can interject this notion. I'd like you to back it up. I want you to do a "little more research". Prove to me your point since you did absolutely no research or analysis to prove your point. I don't think it's exactly fair for you to tell me to do a little more research when you did jack to prove your point. You could have even referenced this in some way....

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/standings ... e=expanded

....but I think this proves the bottom of the west is far easier to beat when you look at conf play thus more easy wins. I could pull 4 data points from here to support this, but I'll let you do the research first!

San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Utah, LA, and Denver would get a lot more wins too if they got to paly the Wizards, NY, Indiana, and Toronto 4 times instead of 2.

Are you saying that WAS\NYC\IND\TOR are easier to beat than MIN\MEM\SAC\OKC? I'd say the bottom teams in the west are far worse than the bottom teams in the east. I mean suppose you take SAN\HOU\NOH\etc would they really win more games than the 3/4 they probably win against the bottom of the west.

So in the west they'd win:
15/20 vs bottom 5 (mem\sac\etc)

Do you really think the east they'd win more than that if it were swapped vs WAS\NYC\etc?! I'd say the bottom of the west is worse. The bottom 6 in the west GSW-SAC is way worse than MIL-WAS.

Tier 1:
CLE BOS ORL vs LAL

Tier 2:
ATL vs DEN SAN HOU UTAH DAL

Tier 3
PHI MIA vs POR NOH

Tier 4
CHA MIL IND NJ CHI DET vs PHX

Here is some other research for you.

http://www.boxscorebasketball.com/eastwest.htm

It's about even both are ahead in 2 of the charts in the 2nd block, but the east has a bigger differential in the ones it is ahead and a smaller differential in ones it is behind.

All but one of those teams (charlotte) would be above .500 if, and i stress if, they won all their games against the West bottom feeders.

It's funny you mention this!! Why do they have to win all? That's not really reasonable. Plus You are also talking about teams that are 1-2 games out of .500 winning%.

Now lets just take CHA as an example who you neglected to use since they were so far out of 500% that 1-2 games wouldn't matter. CHA did win the majority of its games 80% vs the bottom of the west. Here is the list!

Wins:
12/1 min
12/3 okc
12/19 mem
1/21 MEM
2/25 sac
2/27 gsw
2/28 LAC
3/18 SAC

Losses:
12/10 gsw
3/14 MIN

Cha: 34-40 ~45%
Without playing bottom of west 26-38 ~40%
Playing the west bottom x2 more at that win rate instead of other teams: 38-36 ~.5

23% of CHA's wins come from playing the bottom of the west in 10 games!
77% of CHA's wins come from playing everyone else in the league 64 games!

That's a pretty big spread. I glanced at IND and they have a similar result 7-3 vs bottom of the west. PHI was similar I counted 7 wins, but only glanced over their w/l's. MIL was 6-4. There's plenty of factors but I'd say that most teams could count on easier wins vs the bottom of the west. Playing 20 games marginal teams would certainly 13-17 of the 20 games regardless of conference.

[Mattya]

You aren't considering all the injuries the Warriors, Clippers, and Jazz have had this year? I am sure they will be have this many injuries next year too when Redd/Rj guide the Wolves to the playoffs.. The Wizards and Bucks were also hit with a ton of injuries but that is nothing new with those teams.

Gomes might be outmatched by speed or strength but he still plays better defense than Redd. I can't believe someone argue otherwise.

And I wasn't aware nba teams played an 86 game season.

Yawn.

1) Every team has injuries. I think I pointed this out in on of my posts? GSW\LAC are basicly new teams from a year ago. The Jazz have a very solid bench and team in general. Millisap stepped in to boozers roll fine. Deron wasn't out more than a month at the beginning of the season. AK47 always has small nagging injuries. Okur had a few nagging injuries, but the only big impact was Boozer and millisap filled that role for the team.

Regardless, the whole point of my initial comment is you can't look at the records and make statements like OMG DAL would so be #4 in the east when there are tons of factors that need to be accounted for and as you have pointed out injuries are one of those parts. There are tons of variables, and making broad brush statements like you did don't reflect anything about the strength of the conference or how difficult it is to make the playoffs in east vs west.

2) eyeroll

3) I scanned through my post and there was no mention of an 86 game season. I'm startled how you could draw this conclusion. Maybe you simply like to state things that I never said. Or maybe you are saying that I infer this by....

If DAL had to play CLE/BOS/ORL 2 times more each year they'd be #6 in the east!

...But that would be 6 more games tacked onto an 82 game season? 6+82=88. I'm not sure what to think of this or what you meant by it. I assume that it is something to do with the above and you didn't add correctly??!

Do a little more research, watch some scores.

ok. Here is your challenge. Since you think you can interject this notion. I'd like you to back it up. I want you to do a "little more research". Prove to me your point since you did absolutely no research or analysis to prove your point. I don't think it's exactly fair for you to tell me to do a little more research when you did jack to prove your point. You could have even referenced this in some way....

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/standings ... e=expanded

....but I think this proves the bottom of the west is far easier to beat when you look at conf play thus more easy wins. I could pull 4 data points from here to support this, but I'll let you do the research first!

San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, Utah, LA, and Denver would get a lot more wins too if they got to paly the Wizards, NY, Indiana, and Toronto 4 times instead of 2.

Are you saying that WAS\NYC\IND\TOR are easier to beat than MIN\MEM\SAC\OKC? I'd say the bottom teams in the west are far worse than the bottom teams in the east. I mean suppose you take SAN\HOU\NOH\etc would they really win more games than the 3/4 they probably win against the bottom of the west.

So in the west they'd win:
15/20 vs bottom 5 (mem\sac\etc)

Do you really think the east they'd win more than that if it were swapped vs WAS\NYC\etc?! I'd say the bottom of the west is worse. The bottom 6 in the west GSW-SAC is way worse than MIL-WAS.

Tier 1:
CLE BOS ORL vs LAL

Tier 2:
ATL vs DEN SAN HOU UTAH DAL

Tier 3
PHI MIA vs POR NOH

Tier 4
CHA MIL IND NJ CHI DET vs PHX

Here is some other research for you.

http://www.boxscorebasketball.com/eastwest.htm

It's about even both are ahead in 2 of the charts in the 2nd block, but the east has a bigger differential in the ones it is ahead and a smaller differential in ones it is behind.

All but one of those teams (charlotte) would be above .500 if, and i stress if, they won all their games against the West bottom feeders.

It's funny you mention this!! Why do they have to win all? That's not really reasonable. Plus You are also talking about teams that are 1-2 games out of .500 winning%.

Now lets just take CHA as an example who you neglected to use since they were so far out of 500% that 1-2 games wouldn't matter. CHA did win the majority of its games 80% vs the bottom of the west. Here is the list!

Wins:
12/1 min
12/3 okc
12/19 mem
1/21 MEM
2/25 sac
2/27 gsw
2/28 LAC
3/18 SAC

Losses:
12/10 gsw
3/14 MIN

Cha: 34-40 ~45%
Without playing bottom of west 26-38 ~40%
Playing the west bottom x2 more at that win rate instead of other teams: 38-36 ~.5

23% of CHA's wins come from playing the bottom of the west in 10 games!
77% of CHA's wins come from playing everyone else in the league 64 games!

That's a pretty big spread. I glanced at IND and they have a similar result 7-3 vs bottom of the west. PHI was similar I counted 7 wins, but only glanced over their w/l's. MIL was 6-4. There's plenty of factors but I'd say that most teams could count on easier wins vs the bottom of the west. Playing 20 games marginal teams would certainly 13-17 of the 20 games regardless of conference.

Excellent research. I'll admit I was wrong about that comment, but i still don't believe Washington, NJ,NY, Milwaukee, Indiana, or Toronto are that much better than OKC, MIN, or the GSW. Sacto just flat out sucks. If all these teams are healthy the only one that shouldn't be on the list, would be Washington, maybe the clippers. Besides NJ good beginning of the year, they have fallen way off, NY doesn't play defense at all, Indiana is overated in my opinion, same with Milwaukee, and Toronto is an absolute dissapointment. The only reason i can see that they have so many wins, is 1.sacramento 2. they are all similar in being bad, so somebody has to win.

[B Calrissian]

The spurs are #2 in the west and they'd be #4 in the east as well. If you got to play the rebuilding OKC/MN/MEM/SAC 4 times instead of 2 each year. You'd have 8 more wins in the east! Not to mention GSW/LAC overhauled completely. If DAL had to play CLE/BOS/ORL 2 times more each year they'd be #6 in the east!

4 x 14 = 56
2 x 15 = 30

56 + 30 = 86
Teams in the West(/East) don't play every other team in the West(/East) 4 times.
Startled? Want to double check that math? Since, as you said, I can't add correctly.


Eyeroll.. Yawn.. Whatever d-bag thing you want to say next.. (exclamation mark)