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So, Kyrie is out indefinitely, and IMO should be set down for the remainder of the season.

Kevin is officially out for the season too, according to mama Durant. Think what you want, I held out hope for his return. If you pay attention, his updates have coincided with Irving updates; as I predicted, bad news for KI meant bad news for KD.

It's good to see that our guys are all scrapping for a postseason berth, you never want to see your players throw in the towel. However from a front office perspective, the opportunity cost of not trading soon-to-be FA Joe Harris and sandbagging ourselves out of the playoff picture may come back to bite us.

Now, we are going to need to pony up big-time to keep Harris instead of recouping a late 1st from a team that needs a rental sniper. Also, his presence means we remain just good enough to give Atlanta our mid 1st round pick in this year's draft.

Maybe the market wasn't there for Joe, or perhaps Marks felt it would be too difficult to fall out of the playoffs, even if we tried. The problem is, nothing we do this season is going to transfer will to next season, because roles will be so different once our superstars are on the court.
So, Kyrie is out indefinitely, and IMO should be shut down for the remainder of the season.

Is it a great opportunity to show or resilience, and perhaps showcase players to sell this summer? Or is it a wasted opportunity to either build or safe? You decide, let me know your thoughts.

Joe Harris is an extremely important part of this teams title hopes moving forward. He is here because Marks knows that... not because he couldnt get value for him or because we arent in position to tank.

The best thing for this team is to make the playoffs, do as well as possible, and get more PO experience for this core.

Harris will be back. he is the #1 priority of the offseason. you dont give away one of the leagues best shooters who is great off ball and at the rim when you have Kyrie/KD. Harris is the type of guy you covet to put around them and create elite spacing.

The pick we owe atlanta is pretty irrelevant. it would be late lotto in what looks to be a really poor draft,

The idea that we should have traded harris for a late first is the most absurd thing ive heard in a long long time.

We are over the cap. Once free agency starts, we are extremely limited on how we can strengthen this team.

Of all the free agents in the league, the one player we can sign to a $10-$15 million per year contract is Joe Harris because we own his Bird rights. Why would we want to lose the opportunity to re-sign him knowing how well he fits the team, and knows our system?

If he decides to leave in free agency, we can always do a sign-and-trade which would net us a player or a large TPE which would be 10000x times more valuable than some late 1st round pick.

If we traded Harris at the deadline for a pick, it would have stifled our cap flexibility going forward.

eh, I think we're good. we can extend who we need to extend, we have contracts that can be traded, and based off of what we've seen next year after the trading deadline we can improve our depth by signing buyout recipients who are talented. Look at what the Rockets and Clippers just did.

Just for gits & shiggles, I checked some of his NBA RPM numbers just now:



To me that's surprisingly high on defense and surprisingly low on offense.

Obviously his value is very high in terms of spacing the court, even when he's not taking many shots, even when he's not hitting. But he also moves beautifully, finishes well, and does everything he can to prevent the offense from stagnating. I thought that stuff would have combined to make his ORPM higher. Maybe I'm missing something, though.

Prokorov wrote:The pick we owe atlanta is pretty irrelevant. it would be late lotto in what looks to be a really poor draft

You make some cogent arguments, but I want to put a pin in the discussion here. The last person who said this about a Brooklyn Nets pick was Billy King, when we traded for Gerald Wallace. Our pick ended up being Damian Lillard, in a purportedly superweak draft. Kings rationale for giving it up was that no one he could have drafted would have been an impact player, and Gerald was an unrestricted free agent that summer.

It's obviously different circumstances, but you never know with the draft. You also never know just how valuable a player you may pick and develop.

7footMONSTER wrote:We are over the cap. Once free agency starts, we are extremely limited on how we can strengthen this team.

Yeah, I've heard this argument before, and I think that it's time we squash it.

Strengthening the team by paying everyone that you want to keep is a foolhardy strategy, especially when we would be paying them market value based on roles and production that they are not likely to see in the future.

Also, there are dozens of ways to strengthen a team, without plunging headlong into the luxury tax. Look at franchises like Houston and Miami, they are creative with the cap without getting deep into the luxury tax. They know that once you do that you cripple yourself for flexibility in the future. There are contracts that you're not allowed to give to prospective free agents, and when making future trades, other teams know that you need salary breathing room and they use that as leverage. Not to mention, the teams that we would want to trade with in the future are counting on our luxury tax dollars as their kickback for being under the tax, so it isn't in their best interest to help us.

Bottom line, trying to keep the band together has hurt more franchises than it has helped, across all sports. We have a soft cap in the NBA, but it's an exponentially punitive one, and for complementary players the sound strategy is to reload on the cheap.

ecuhus1981 wrote:

7footMONSTER wrote:We are over the cap. Once free agency starts, we are extremely limited on how we can strengthen this team.

Yeah, I've heard this argument before, and I think that it's time we squash it.

Strengthening the team by paying everyone that you want to keep is a foolhardy strategy, especially when we would be paying them market value based on roles and production that they are not likely to see in the future.

Also, there are dozens of ways to strengthen a team, without plunging headlong into the luxury tax. Look at franchises like Houston and Miami, they are creative with the cap without getting deep into the luxury tax. They know that once you do that you cripple yourself for flexibility in the future. There are contracts that you're not allowed to give to prospective free agents, and when making future trades, other teams know that you need salary breathing room and they use that as leverage. Not to mention, the teams that we would want to trade with in the future are counting on our luxury tax dollars as their kickback for being under the tax, so it isn't in their best interest to help us.

Bottom line, trying to keep the band together has hurt more franchises than it has helped, across all sports. We have a soft cap in the NBA, but it's an exponentially punitive one, and for complementary players the sound strategy is to reload on the cheap.

Do you understand how valuable Bird rights are for teams that are over the cap?

Harris is literally the one player in the NBA that we can re-sign or use in a sign and trade to acquire someone else. Why on Earth would we trade him for a pick?

Your other point was just as bad. So if Dinwiddie, LeVert, Allen, Prince, and the rest of our core get more experience closing out games and playing in the playoffs, why would you think that experience wouldn’t help them for next season?

ecuhus1981 wrote:

Prokorov wrote:The pick we owe atlanta is pretty irrelevant. it would be late lotto in what looks to be a really poor draft

You make some cogent arguments, but I want to put a pin in the discussion here. The last person who said this about a Brooklyn Nets pick was Billy King, when we traded for Gerald Wallace. Our pick ended up being Damian Lillard, in a purportedly superweak draft. Kings rationale for giving it up was that no one he could have drafted would have been an impact player, and Gerald was an unrestricted free agent that summer.

It's obviously different circumstances, but you never know with the draft. You also never know just how valuable a player you may pick and develop.

I think it's a big difference between the 6th pick in the draft and whatever non lottery pick we end up sending ATL though.

What Billy King was gross negligence.

If we can make the second round of the playoffs with our two best players on IR we are looking great when they both come back along with a first round pick next year.

gigantes wrote:Just for gits & shiggles, I checked some of his NBA RPM numbers just now:

Code: Select all

                   ORPM      DRPM      RPM       WINS
Joe Harris   BKN   0.47      1.29      1.77      2.83

To me that's surprisingly high on defense and surprisingly low on offense.

Obviously his value is very high in terms of spacing the court, even when he's not taking many shots, even when he's not hitting. But he also moves beautifully, finishes well, and does everything he can to prevent the offense from stagnating. I thought that stuff would have combined to make his ORPM higher. Maybe I'm missing something, though.

our offensive stats are skewed. When we had Kyrie/Levert out our offense was AWFUL. Prince/Harris/Temple was asked to do more than their role. those guys numbers since those guys got back are much better. especially prince.

ecuhus1981 wrote:

Prokorov wrote:The pick we owe atlanta is pretty irrelevant. it would be late lotto in what looks to be a really poor draft

You make some cogent arguments, but I want to put a pin in the discussion here. The last person who said this about a Brooklyn Nets pick was Billy King, when we traded for Gerald Wallace. Our pick ended up being Damian Lillard, in a purportedly superweak draft. Kings rationale for giving it up was that no one he could have drafted would have been an impact player, and Gerald was an unrestricted free agent that summer.

It's obviously different circumstances, but you never know with the draft. You also never know just how valuable a player you may pick and develop.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

King traded a high lottery pick in a draft featuring Anthony davis for a 3 month RENTAL of gerald wallace on a team that was rebuilding/building.

This would be the opposite. giving away a known commodity and huge part of our team/leagues top 3 point shooter for a late lotto draft pick when we are in Win-Now mode with Durant next year.

outside of Zion/Morant there isnt a single guy in this past draft id trade Harris for given our situation with KD/Kyrie next year. And next years draft is weaker.

It just doesnt make any sense. any way you look at it unless you expect us to get lucky and land the #1 pick or something

Prokorov wrote:

ecuhus1981 wrote:

Prokorov wrote:The pick we owe atlanta is pretty irrelevant. it would be late lotto in what looks to be a really poor draft

You make some cogent arguments, but I want to put a pin in the discussion here. The last person who said this about a Brooklyn Nets pick was Billy King, when we traded for Gerald Wallace. Our pick ended up being Damian Lillard, in a purportedly superweak draft. Kings rationale for giving it up was that no one he could have drafted would have been an impact player, and Gerald was an unrestricted free agent that summer.

It's obviously different circumstances, but you never know with the draft. You also never know just how valuable a player you may pick and develop.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

King traded a high lottery pick in a draft featuring Anthony davis for a 3 month RENTAL of gerald wallace on a team that was rebuilding/building.

This would be the opposite. giving away a known commodity and huge part of our team/leagues top 3 point shooter for a late lotto draft pick when we are in Win-Now mode with Durant next year.

outside of Zion/Morant there isnt a single guy in this past draft id trade Harris for given our situation with KD/Kyrie next year. And next years draft is weaker.

It just doesnt make any sense. any way you look at it unless you expect us to get lucky and land the #1 pick or something

Gerald Wallace was sitting on the bench in Portland at that time. He wasn't even worth a 1st round pick regardless of draft position.

There's a reason why Billy King has been blacklisted from the NBA.

MrDollarBills wrote:

Prokorov wrote:

ecuhus1981 wrote:You make some cogent arguments, but I want to put a pin in the discussion here. The last person who said this about a Brooklyn Nets pick was Billy King, when we traded for Gerald Wallace. Our pick ended up being Damian Lillard, in a purportedly superweak draft. Kings rationale for giving it up was that no one he could have drafted would have been an impact player, and Gerald was an unrestricted free agent that summer.

It's obviously different circumstances, but you never know with the draft. You also never know just how valuable a player you may pick and develop.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

King traded a high lottery pick in a draft featuring Anthony davis for a 3 month RENTAL of gerald wallace on a team that was rebuilding/building.

This would be the opposite. giving away a known commodity and huge part of our team/leagues top 3 point shooter for a late lotto draft pick when we are in Win-Now mode with Durant next year.

outside of Zion/Morant there isnt a single guy in this past draft id trade Harris for given our situation with KD/Kyrie next year. And next years draft is weaker.

It just doesnt make any sense. any way you look at it unless you expect us to get lucky and land the #1 pick or something

Gerald Wallace was sitting on the bench in Portland at that time. He wasn't even worth a 1st round pick regardless of draft position.

There's a reason why Billy King has been blacklisted from the NBA.

Yup. it was the worst trade in nets history. moreso than the boston one

I don't think the season has been great at all but I don't think we're in a bad position.

I think there would've been an argument for "tanking" and selling Joe for an asset if we really stunk it up the last 10 games. I think it would be a bad look but we'd enter the offseason with 3 1st rounders. Combine those with 2 of Dinwiddie/LeVert/Allen/Prince and you can get an all star return EASY. Not how I'd prefer to build a team but it was an option.

Right now, I think the team is in a really solid spot. Low expectations because Kyrie is out. Team is feeling good.

Dinwiddie and LeVert are the alpha dogs now. No more changing roles. Let's see what they got.

Another year of our core + Kenny getting experience in big games and the playoffs. Super important. Dinwiddie, Allen, Harris, LeVert, Prince are all still new to this.

Still wish we were playing young guys but that's something the team has to keep in mind for next year. No point in having Rodi, Musa on the roster on a contending team with basically zero experience and zero trust from the coach.

MGrand15 wrote:I don't think the season has been great at all but I don't think we're in a bad position.

I think there would've been an argument for "tanking" and selling Joe for an asset if we really stunk it up the last 10 games. I think it would be a bad look but we'd enter the offseason with 3 1st rounders. Combine those with 2 of Dinwiddie/LeVert/Allen/Prince and you can get an all star return EASY. Not how I'd prefer to build a team but it was an option.

Right now, I think the team is in a really solid spot. Low expectations because Kyrie is out. Team is feeling good.

Dinwiddie and LeVert are the alpha dogs now. No more changing roles. Let's see what they got.

Another year of our core + Kenny getting experience in big games and the playoffs. Super important. Dinwiddie, Allen, Harris, LeVert, Prince are all still new to this.

Still wish we were playing young guys but that's something the team has to keep in mind for next year. No point in having Rodi, Musa on the roster on a contending team with basically zero experience and zero trust from the coach.

I think Kurucs can contribute to a contending team. I think that his lack of playing time is due to off court issues, not practicing, distrated with his court/legal issues, etc.

Musa is just not ready to help a team win.

Prokorov wrote:I think Kurucs can contribute to a contending team. I think that his lack of playing time is due to off court issues, not practicing, distrated with his court/legal issues, etc.

Is there any real evidence for that, though?

Whoever his legal team are, I'm sure they know their business. I would strongly suspect they gathered all the information they needed from him long ago, and figured out the best way to proceed, also long ago, and are mainly just waiting for the system to move forward, submitting the right documents in a timely manner and so forth.

In fact, I tend to doubt this business takes up more than a minute of Rodi's time on a daily basis. Now maybe counseling does, let's say on a weekly basis, but counseling tends to help a person's mental state, not create complications or take away a significant portion of that person's time.

Not to mention, most people seem to find that when a person's in uncertain, stressful times, the healthy distraction of practice is in fact just what the doctor ordered.

Bottom line, I'm not buying last summer's incident / legal case having as much of an impact on Rodi as you're proposing.

Another way of looking at this is-- if Rodi is indeed continuing to fall apart because of this stuff, do you really see him as NBA material? I mean, I don't condone the alleged incident, but the fact is, he's hardly alone among pro athletes in terms of this or other types of significant distractions.

I also seem to recall Matty Brooks or someone breaking down how excellent of a connection DLo had with Rodi, and how much Rodi likely still misses that. That's to me a more evidence-driven example of why Rodi has seemingly taken a step back this year. So perhaps the actual reality is-- Rodi's been forced to work on areas of his game that were glossed over a bit by the presence of DLo.

gigantes wrote:

Prokorov wrote:I think Kurucs can contribute to a contending team. I think that his lack of playing time is due to off court issues, not practicing, distrated with his court/legal issues, etc.

Is there any real evidence for that, though?

Whoever his legal team are, I'm sure they know their business. I would strongly suspect they gathered all the information they needed from him long ago, and figured out the best way to proceed, also long ago, and are mainly just waiting for the system to move forward, submitting the right documents in a timely manner and so forth.

In fact, I tend to doubt this business takes up more than a minute of Rodi's time on a daily basis. Now maybe counseling does, let's say on a weekly basis, but counseling tends to help a person's mental state, not create complications or take away a significant portion of that person's time.

Not to mention, most people seem to find that when a person's in uncertain, stressful times, the healthy distraction of practice is in fact just what the doctor ordered.

Bottom line, I'm not buying last summer's incident / legal case having as much of an impact on Rodi as you're proposing.

Another way of looking at this is-- if Rodi is indeed continuing to fall apart because of this stuff, do you really see him as NBA material? I mean, I don't condone the alleged incident, but the fact is, he's hardly alone among pro athletes in terms of this or other types of significant distractions.

I also seem to recall Matty Brooks or someone breaking down how excellent of a connection DLo had with Rodi, and how much Rodi likely still misses that. That's to me a more evidence-driven example of why Rodi has seemingly taken a step back this year. So perhaps the actual reality is-- Rodi's been forced to work on areas of his game that were glossed over a bit by the presence of DLo.

Rodi didnt lose his job, play poorly, or get outplayed. his simply didnt play. when scrubs like musa were playing. he didnt play. when chandler was out, he didnt play.

It has to be something off court or in practice.

i also think you are downplaying the distraction of something that could result in him doing jailtime. keep in mind this kid is 20 and from another country. this isnt some 26 year old vet from the US with 20 million in the bank to pay for the best legal team who necessarily even understands the us legal system fully.

him being a scared kid who may spend time in jail to me doesnt make him "not an NBA player" and while sports can be a good distraction when you are in fear sometimes its hard to focus on anything until it is resolved.

I was sued once by a former employer who claimed I broke my non-compete agreement. i couldnt focus on anything until the case was resolved. and im 40 and there was no chance of criminal actions/jailtime

Prokorov wrote:

gigantes wrote:

Prokorov wrote:I think Kurucs can contribute to a contending team. I think that his lack of playing time is due to off court issues, not practicing, distrated with his court/legal issues, etc.

Is there any real evidence for that, though?

Whoever his legal team are, I'm sure they know their business. I would strongly suspect they gathered all the information they needed from him long ago, and figured out the best way to proceed, also long ago, and are mainly just waiting for the system to move forward, submitting the right documents in a timely manner and so forth.

In fact, I tend to doubt this business takes up more than a minute of Rodi's time on a daily basis. Now maybe counseling does, let's say on a weekly basis, but counseling tends to help a person's mental state, not create complications or take away a significant portion of that person's time.

Not to mention, most people seem to find that when a person's in uncertain, stressful times, the healthy distraction of practice is in fact just what the doctor ordered.

Bottom line, I'm not buying last summer's incident / legal case having as much of an impact on Rodi as you're proposing.

Another way of looking at this is-- if Rodi is indeed continuing to fall apart because of this stuff, do you really see him as NBA material? I mean, I don't condone the alleged incident, but the fact is, he's hardly alone among pro athletes in terms of this or other types of significant distractions.

I also seem to recall Matty Brooks or someone breaking down how excellent of a connection DLo had with Rodi, and how much Rodi likely still misses that. That's to me a more evidence-driven example of why Rodi has seemingly taken a step back this year. So perhaps the actual reality is-- Rodi's been forced to work on areas of his game that were glossed over a bit by the presence of DLo.

Rodi didnt lose his job, play poorly, or get outplayed. his simply didnt play. when scrubs like musa were playing. he didnt play. when chandler was out, he didnt play.

It has to be something off court or in practice.

i also think you are downplaying the distraction of something that could result in him doing jailtime. keep in mind this kid is 20 and from another country. this isnt some 26 year old vet from the US with 20 million in the bank to pay for the best legal team who necessarily even understands the us legal system fully.

him being a scared kid who may spend time in jail to me doesnt make him "not an NBA player" and while sports can be a good distraction when you are in fear sometimes its hard to focus on anything until it is resolved.

I was sued once by a former employer who claimed I broke my non-compete agreement. i couldnt focus on anything until the case was resolved. and im 40 and there was no chance of criminal actions/jailtime

Those are good points, and a real possibility IMO.

That said, there's indeed some legit bball reasons why he may not have played much, starting with the fact that he was pretty bad in the early season and occasionally afterwards. He certainly wouldn't be the first guy to get an extended yank over something that displeased the coaches, hopefully to work on the issue behind the scenes.

As for money, Rodi may not have $20m in the bank, but he's likely a multi-millionaire given his current salary and three years at top club FC Barcelona. I'm no expert, but I'm thinking he should at least be able to field a competent legal team, not just Lionel Hutz.

Also, the way cases like this seem to work is in terms of titrating a settlement. Accusers typically don't tend to want to make themselves too conspicuous or go overboard in punishing the other person due to consequences in the public arena, hence a cash settlement behind doors. Or even if they somehow failed to settle, and he was convicted... he's a first offender. Unlikely jail time IME.

You also have to think that one of the first things Marks did was to run all scenarios past the Nets' legal team from day one. In the wake of that, he chose to go ahead and support Rodi rather than release him, which probably tells us a lot right there. Obviously it would look pretty bad for Rodi to go straight from the court to jail, so to speak.

Regardless, I understand that this (or various other life events) can be a major distraction. But if there's a known, excellent form of therapy for that kind of thing, it's physical activity, and even competitive physical activity. Maybe Rodi is zombified out to an extent, but still, he could be in far worse shape... like doing a desk job and being utterly unable to concentrate, sh-tting bricks all day long.

I'm fully onboard with the inactivity being a combination of things, but I still have a hard time seeing it being purely due to the legal case. We just don't know, though...

a settlement is irrelevant in a criminal case. that would pertain only to a civil case. Rodi has alot to worry about